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In
her latest bewitching volume of The Vampire Chronicles, Anne
Rice summons up dazzling worlds to bring us the story of Armand
— eternally young, with the face of a Botticelli angel
— who appeared as the flamboyant leader of the Théâtre
des Vampires in Interview with the Vampire.
Armand
begins his story against the dark, dramatic backdrop of the
New Orleans convent where Lestat still lies in Endymion-like
sleep. The first memories he can conjure up are brutal ones
— of himself as a boy, filthy and degraded, on a slave
ship bound from Constantinople for Renaissance Venice.
There
in a magnificent palazzo he becomes the catamite and pupil
of a rich, reclusive artist — Marius, the greatest vampire
of them all. Later, in a duel with an English lord, Armand
receives a fatal wound, from which only Marius's dark gift
can save him. Near death, he relives memories of an earlier,
half-forgotten childhood in Kiev in Russia — a city under
Mongol domination — and of Constantinople, where Tartar
raiders sold him into slavery.
The
novel rises in a glorious crescendo, moving through scenes
of luxury and decadence, of ambush, fire and devil worship
to nineteenth-century Paris and finally to present-day New
Orleans. Summoned there by the playing of impassioned music
and visions of lost childhood, Armand, the eternally vulnerable
and romantic hero, is forced to choose between his twilight
immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.
Teeming
with richness, sensuality and light, The Vampire Armand
weaves an extraordinarily powerful spell, building to a climax
and a thrilling moment of epiphany in the convent in New Orleans.
Source:
The Vampire Armand jacket cover
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