Lestat calls this the “first really modern” installment; not just for its contemporary setting but because " it accepts the horrifying absurdity of existence." Sure enough, we see Lestat’s computers and VCR as a 200-year-old vampire would–ephemeral, disposable, not quite real. His wealth seems like a Robin Leach fantasy–but that’s the point. Although Lestat favors lavish lairs, to vampires creature comforts are a matter of whim, not necessity. Their fondness for select mortals doesn’t divert their bloodlust. Quite the contrary. “All along I’ve told you I was evil,” Lestat warns one mortal. Believe it.
We get comic relief when Lestat vacates his nearly invulnerable, undead corpse. (Rice’s vampires, remember, are unfazed by crucifixes or stakes through the heart.) Rice has fun with this blood-drinker’s revulsion at having to eat and defecate; the “James Bond of the vampires” must now fear the common cold. But Lestat’s final deed is as inhumanly evil as promised-and no God sentences him to hell for it, no Devil drags him down. Something even more crucial than Western civilization teeters on the brink here: what does it mean to be human, and what does it matter? Rice isn’t saying; readers who crave a happy ending, a justice and a moral coherence that transcend the muddle they really live in, may feel she has broken faith with them. After all, isn’t that what escapist fiction is supposed to provide? Grown-ups, on the other hand, will be intelligently entertained, and no more disquieted than usual.
