Prism of the Night: 2a Biography of Anne Rice

The life of novelist Anne Rice ( Interview with the Vampire , etc.) is almost as unusual as her fiction. Her birthname was Howard Allen O'Brien, and she changed her first name to Anne before marrying Stan Rice. Born in 1941, she grew up in a New Orleans full of Southern gothic ambience; her father enjoyed taking her through cemeteries. The death of her alcoholic, highly religious mother, and the later loss of her own daughter to leukemia, plunged her into grief, obsessive-compulsive behavior and nearly fragmented her. Through her supernatural tales and erotica written under a number of pseudonyms, she explored her own masochistic impulses, ``sought to unite the male and female within herself'' and expressed her desire for humanity's ``enlightenment free of religious tyranny,'' according to Ramsland, who teaches philosophy at Rutgers. In a revelatory, intimate biography that fans will relish, Ramsland interprets Rice's vampires as metaphors of seduction and submission to a higher mystery and power. Photos. (Nov.)