Can’t I just stay in the closet? Homophobia in Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)

Upon reading the analysis of The Vampire Chronicles in Queer Gothic (Haggerty, 2006), I wanted to deep-dive into the attitudes towards queerness in Rice’s first, best-selling novel Interview with the Vampire, specifically.

In his essay, ‘Anne Rice and the Queering of Culture‘, Haggerty explores the presence of homophobia in The Vampire Chronicles in context of the AIDS crisis, explaining why this might have influenced her books of the time;

The thirst of the vampire… is the symptomatic reality of desire itself. What Magnus’ heap of corpses suggests, however, is that male-on-male desire must be compulsive, repetitive and fatal. This is the secret around which the Chronicles are built.

G Haggerty (2006). Queer Gothic. Urbana, Il: University Of Illinois Press.

He also adds that ‘in the 1970’s and 80’s, Anne Rice’s books might have been ahead of their time’ (Haggerty, 2006) but as they stand, with the final in the first cycle of books (Vampire Armand) being released in 1998, it provides us with the impression that Rice is not in fact adhering to the typical Gothic act of having queerness occupy the forward-thinking ‘tense space between referential association with the normative and absolute separation from its morals and aesthetics.’ (Hughes W. & Smith. A, 2009).

My aim is to consider further whether the opening pages of Interview with the vampire reflect the same contextual and embedded homophobia in isolation, rather than in context of the full The Vampire Chronicles series. I’d like to explore whether, by removing the cultural context of the 1980’s/early 1990’s AIDS panic that Rice still wrote with the same homophobic sense of morality within her first novel. I will also deep-dive into the claims made briefly in Haggerty’s chapter titled ‘Anne Rice and the Queering of Culture‘, with regards to the presence of homophobia, providing evidence where applicable in this earliest book.

The novel in context

In isolation, Interview with the vampire breaks new ground in pushing boundaries of vampiric protagonists, perhaps paving the way for more vampire novels of their kind. However, where queerness parallels between vampires and homosexuality are drawn, is this forward-thinking? Or is it merely re-enforcing boundaries which had since been broken? Haggerty claims the latter could be the case;

Even in moments of the most intense intimacy or of unbridled sexual attraction, Rice insists on the repulsion that homosexuality regularly breeds in the minds of fundamentalist politicians and other members of the extreme right.

G Haggerty (2006). Queer Gothic. Urbana, Il: University Of Illinois Press.

So, let’s explore whether the boundaries Rice sets within Interview with the Vampire are imposed culturally in context of the release of the story, and whether Rice truly was pushing boundaries with her queer-coded vampires.

By 1967, it is no longer illegal to be gay in England and Wales, by 1969 the Stonewall riots spark organisations to support LGBTQ+ rights globally. In 1976, in the midst of this proactive support for gay rights (and prior to the devastating setbacks to LGBTQ+ rights caused by the ‘gay panic’ of the AIDS crisis), Rice releases Interview with the vampire while living in California, the same year that same-sex sexual activity is no longer illegal in the state.

We should bear in mind that meanwhile, in Louisiana and Texas, where Anne spent most of her time up to this point, being gay was still illegal and would remain so until 2003. We should consider whether this, along with the Christian conservatism that remains prevalent to this day, may have affected the ways in which Rice wrote, and whether what appears on the face to perhaps be forward-thinking, is actually not so much as it seems.

Homosexuality, vampirism and godlessness

When we first meet Louis, we’re informed of his renouncing of his brother’s alleged ‘connection to God’. Louis holds himself in contempt for not believing in his brother’s visions and will not allow himself to be forgiven for forsaking his brother and therefore God’s will. Louis draws a direct comparison between his choices in abandoning Christianity and the demise of his brother, while simultaneously explaining the homoerotic experience of becoming a vampire. This complex interwoven narrative where Louis damns himself for his lack of connection to God, alongside his embracing of his queer-coded vampiric fate is no accident.

Of course, positioning vampirism as an antithesis to Christianity and ‘godliness’ is common practice within the Gothic – we only need to look briefly at Dracula to see this. However, by directly relating homosexuality to vampiric nature while also intertwining these two core narratives of Louis’ origin, Rice is highlighting the act of homosexuality as sin against God.

There is plausible deniability in this within Rice’s world though, since the sexuality of our vampire protagonists remains ambiguous. Rice uses a series of clever homoerotic phrases, sexual tropes and dog-whistles in these initial pages to imply homosexuality without overtly confirming its existence; in essence, they are only queer-coded, asexual and are never confirmed as gay within the novel itself. Let us take the first section of the novel, in which Louis explains how he is turned into a vampire, as an example of this.

Initiation into a new, queer culture

During his interview, Louis explains to the male interviewer that he cannot accurately describe to him the act of transitioning to vampire;

I can tell you about it… but I can’t tell you exactly, any more than I could tell you exactly what is the experience of sex if you have never had it. (Pg.18)

This phrase, which is addressed to the interviewer (who in turn reflects the reader’s thirst and intrigue), is quite set apart from Louis’ wistful, remorseful self-flagellation of the previous paragraphs, making us take note in particular of that parallel between the enlightenment that Lestat has provided in making him a vampire, and the act of sex.

First, Louis remarks on vampires being part of a ‘select club’; Lestat then makes Louis watch and ‘approve the taking’ of another man’s life, and in his horror at the impact of this, not on the man but on his newly widowed wife, Louis refuses to look at Lestat on the way back to his home, in case he is ‘spellbound by the sheer beauty of his appearance.’ (Pg. 18-22) What we see here is a metaphor for Rice’s view of mens’ potential initiation into gay culture; first through openly gay but niche ‘clubs’ where men might undertake certain actions, unbeknownst to their wives at home, for which our protagonist would feel immediately remorseful at witnessing and then do all he can not to succumb to that same sinful, sexual power again. Note: This metaphor would be quite satisfying if anything came of it but unfortunately, when it comes to outwardly mentioning homosexuality, Anne falls short.

The act of being turned

Next, we see the act of Louis succumbing to vampirism itself, during which Louis makes consistently homoerotic reflections;

‘… he lay down beside me now… so graceful and so personal that it at once made me think of a lover. I recoiled. But he put his right arm around me and pulled me close to his chest… As I tried to move, he pressed his right fingers to my lips and said, “Be still. I am going to drain you now…’

[…]

‘”Listen, keep your eyes wide,” Lestat whispered to me, his lips moving against my neck. I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion…’

Anne Rice – Interview with the Vampire Pg.21

I don’t think I need to explain how this scene is homoerotic; I am sure we can all sense the sexual tension in Louis’ experience of being turned into a vampire by another man. The next pages of the novel go on to explain in detail the ways in which Louis completed his initiation into vampirism, through the swapping of fluids (blood) and the closeness of the two men’s heartbeats. In true Rice fashion, this passionate closeness and the tension it conjures is abruptly interrupted and closed off by the need for the interviewer to change over the tape in his recorder (Pg.23), a device that could be quite satisfying if the tension is then rebuilt to a crescendo. (Alas, it is not.)

It’s at this point that we see a trope played out that occurs in myriad romance novels in the enemies-to-lovers genre to this day. The ‘There was only one bed’ moment; a trope used to initiate taboo and/or queer sexual experiences in novels as early as Moby Dick (1851) and likely even prior to that. Lestat exclaims that he is a fool for not making sleeping provisions for Louis;

“You’ll have to bed down with me this morning, I haven’t prepared you a coffin.”

Anne Rice – Interview with the Vampire Pg. 24

Louis reacts with fear at the fact he has now been ‘turned’ (so to speak) and only ‘mild alarm’ at hearing the news that he will need to share a coffin with Lestat. What happens next makes me laugh out loud because it is so very on-the-nose (and inspired the choice for the title of this blog.) Louis begs Lestat… ‘let me stay in the closet’, to which Lestat laughs and replies ‘Don’t you know what you are?’ Pg.26

The phrase ‘staying in the closet’ or ‘closeted’ became synonymous with hiding one’s true queer nature during the gay liberation movements of the 1960’s (Saguy, 2020); a phrase in common parlance when Rice wrote and published this novel and therefore the implication of its use here is unavoidable. Louis, is not afraid of further contact with Lestat, he is scared of the new methods by which he needs to live as a new, enlightened homosexual (oops, I mean, vampire). He is more scared of the fact that he’s made this irreversible ‘choice’ about his life, than the fear that he would now have to go to bed with the man who turned him. I use ‘choice’ in this way because that is what Louis believes himself to have done, despite the alternative being death, either at Lestat’s hand or his own.

Louis immediately finds a new ‘distaste for being so close to [Lestat], handsome and intriguing as he was’ Pg.26. He refers to him as ‘the most overwhelming experience [he’d] ever had’ but quickly explains that Lestat’s ‘spell’ over Louis quickly broke and that he even becomes bored and disinterested now that the two are ‘equal.’ Pg.27 Through this immediate disinterest, we can see Rice’s attitude towards the potential for love between two men; she sees no room for intimacy beyond the physical, and both she and her protagonist show no further wish nor reason to explore further past the initiation into this realm of queer tension.

Disdain for deadly promiscuity

Louis looks with disdain at the ways which Lestat conducts himself when in this vampiric state; with apparent disrespect and belittling for Louis’ new experiences of vampirism. Pg. 32 Louis says he has no ‘wish to rush headlong into experience’ as it was ‘far too powerful to be wasted’. Pg.33 He even compares it to like being in love. Conversely he finds the ways in which Lestat approaches the world to be one-dimensional and their clearly conflicting ideas on what this new queer experience should be means that their honeymoon period never really takes off.

Lestat reinforces his importance in their relationship immediately by saying that it’s unlikely Louis will be able to find more people who share his experience, and warns him not to tell others that he is a vampire. Pg.34 This feels akin to the experiences of newly queer people of the time; where it would have been inadvisable to share your queerness with others. Gay communities were a hidden sub-culture and therefore hard to find; and when a person would discover their sexuality, they’d then struggle to meet anyone within their community, and therefore need to stick begrudgingly to their first gateway into the culture. Lestat keeps Louis isolated in his queerness, persuading Louis that the only way to continue this queer lifestyle is through his guidance, giving Lestat the power over Louis through the illusion of isolation.

While Louis remains steadfastly reserved, taking his own kind of pleasure in voyeurism and unwavering restraint against feeding from humans, Lestat is described as ‘vulgar’ and ‘reckless’ in his pursuit of his preferred prey;

“The better the human… the more he liked it. A fresh young girl, that was his favourite for the first of the evening; but the triumphant kill for Lestat was a young man. A young man around your age would have appealed to him in particular.”

Louis on Lestat, Anne Rice – Interview with the Vampire. Pg.41

Here, Louis is the remorseful queer man who does not indulge or find happiness in physicality with other men, or women for that matter. He views Lestat as Rice might have viewed promiscuous gay men at the time, and, through Louis, we see the conservative nature with which she views the sexuality of these creatures, her creations, and in turn, queerness in general.

Summary

I could (and might still) continue to analyse Interview with the Vampire as I continue to re-read it and notice more evidence of Rice’s deeply conservative, homoerotic vampires. From the ways that Louis is described as being ‘detached’ from loving women Pg.41, to the act of Lestat and Louis ‘playing house’ as they move through time and place and create an eternally damned daughter for themselves. From the allure of a life with a centuries-old-yet-eternally-youthful male vampire, to Louis’ ultimate choice to remain alone rather than go forward into a homosexual relationship.

Rice’s protagonist in Interview with the vampire is as conflicted about the morality of his queerness as Rice is about queerness in general, stuck endlessly reinforcing stereotypes and debating the morals of queer experience. As Haggerty explains, and we have explored here, the ‘tense space’ which queerness occupies in this novel is not imposed by societal values as is traditional in the Gothic, but is a specifically engineered space created by Rice through her own values where homo-eroticism can be seductive but never satisfying, where homosexual love and physicality remains disdainful; where gayness needs to remain a quiet subculture and can never be fulfilling for its participants.

References

G Haggerty (2006). Queer Gothic. Urbana, Il: University Of Illinois Press.

Hughes, W. and Smith, A. (2011). Queering the Gothic. Manchester ; New York: Manchester University Press.

Rice, A. (2012 print). Interview with the vampire. London (Great-Britain): Sphere, Impr.

Gaysi. (2023). There Was Only One Bed: The Romance At The Heart Of Moby Dick – Nam Perugu for Gaysi. [online] [Accessed 18 Oct. 2024].

‌Saguy, A. (2020). The history of ‘coming out,’ from secret gay code to popular political protest. [online] UCLA. [Accessed 18 Oct. 2024].

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