The Redeemed Anne Rice

For three decades Anne Rice wrote sensuous, dark thrillers about vampires, witches and soft S&M. Her novels sold over one million copies and inspired movies, television series, musical theatre and music. Yet, in November 2005, Rice shocked her publisher and the public with what many say is a book inspired by God.

Though Anne Rice presented "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" to her publisher without warning, Knopf recognized the potential of the work and ran off 500,000 hardback copies for the first printing. Beliefnet named "Christ the Lord" the 2005 Best Spiritual Book of the Year.

When asked about the spiritual turnaround in an interview for CBS in December 2005, Rice told the reporter that her characters in earlier novels were a metaphor for what she felt at the time. Rice had been raised Catholic but left the Church in the sixties for philosophical freedoms. Until then, her faith prohibited her from reading Sartre, Kierkegaarde, Camus. Gay and lesbian rights, a woman's right to choose and respect for all religions appealed to Rice's humanist temperament, but are forbidden by Catholicism. The other influence, Stan Rice, whom she married in 1961, was a passionate atheist, though of the highest moral principles.

In years that followed, Rice was in despair. "I was grieving for a lost religion and I felt like an outcast, an outsider; but I was a person on a quest. I was making a pilgrimage. All those novels were saturated in religious imagery one way or another." They reflected her guilt and misery in being cut off from God. She and they were lost in a world without light.

For years, Rice believed she had to know the answers to questions the Catholic Church of her youth addressed with disdain. However, in 1998, she told herself to just go back and let God handle the rest. "You don't have to know; He knows." Rice remains passionately supportive of the rights of gays to participate in religious worship and has concerns about other edicts and the moral standing of the Church. However, she places those matters in God's hands.

"I didn't think it was possible to find faith in a God who would give meaning to everything and to my amazement, I did." Rice says. As a result, Rice eventually committed to writing only about God and began the daunting task of creating a narrative from the viewpoint of seven-year-old Jesus in "Christ the Lord." She plans to follow with three sequels taking us through the Ascension.

I asked Rice how the first sequel is coming. She replied, "On the next book in the 'Christ the Lord' series, I am working daily on it, and hope to have it finished soon – which is what I've been saying for over a year."

Rice has been busy, too, writing the script for the film interpretation of "Christ the Lord" to be called "Out of Egypt." She says that everyone is pleased with the script and the search for a director is underway. "Wonderful people are joining the team for the film every day."

David Kirkpatrick, former president of both Paramount and Disney and an independent producer of films like the Opposite of Sex, bought the film rights to "Christ the Lord." As one of the founders of the Christian multimedia company Good News Holdings, he plans to make the movie for about $40 million.

Rice also told me: "The response to this first book has been incredibly strong and inspiring. Emails come in daily, most very loving and some extremely inspiring -- people talking about what they liked in the book, what surprised them, what characters they responded to... and most saying in one way or another that it was the human dimension of the Lord that they so appreciated."

"The book continues to sell at a steady pace, which is rare for my books. Usually they peak immediately then taper off. Something different is going on here. What pleases me the most is that people give this book a chance; they overcome any hesitation about my reputation and they pick it up, and they find themselves responding warmly. What more could I ask for?"

Reviews for the book have been exceptional as well. Kirkus Reviews calls the first installment "spiritually potent" and "a cross between a historical novel and an update of Tolstoy's "The Gospel in Brief.'" They describe her prose as "lean, lyrical and vivid."

As a fervent historian, Rice has drawn primarily from the book of Luke and numerous scholarly sources such as Josephus, John Wenham, Craig S. Keener, and Fr. Benedict Groeschel CFR. The foundation, the environment, dress, customs, political climate and events are convincing re-creations. Rice creates characters who converse, behave and interact in ways that draw us into the scenario as if we are bystanders.

When Jesus begins to recognize that although he is human, he also has mysterious abilities, and that there are secrets about his birth, his family and him that no one will explain, we are not only witnesses but confidants. We rejoice when Jesus realizes the reason he has come to be born of a woman is in order to teach us how to live.

In the Author's Note found following the story in "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," Rice writes: "I offer this book to those who know nothing of Jesus Christ in the hope that you will see him in these pages in some form. I offer this novel with love to my readers who've followed me through one strange turn after another in hope that Jesus will be as real to you as any other character I've ever launched into the world we share."

Reviews, email from fans, even a tribute to Stan Rice, her husband of 41 years who died in 2002 of a brain tumor, can be found on Anne Rice's website. It's easy to spend many delightful hours perusing the site. From pages with photos of Anne and family as a child, through her years of book signings and her Jazz Funeral to current snaps of her and her son Christopher, one gets to know and appreciate the writer and person. Though she can be reclusive, Anne Rice is generous with the facts of her life, her thoughts and interests.

As a break-away Catholic, I, too, struggle with the concept of God, moral, social and psychological issues. I empathize with Anne Rice's longings for faith. I, too, am intrigued by the occult and the supernatural. I once read original texts and transcripts in Old English of the Salem witch trials, borrowed from Harvard's Widener Library. But after the man I was once married to adopted "The Marque de Sade" as his favorite book, Rice's convincing stories crept too close to home for me to read or see on film, until now.

The mystique for me about Anne Rice was what could have happened to create such a transformation for her to turn from the dark forces of Goth to the Divine. I find, though, that it is not so unlike my own journey from Catholic to atheist to spiritual explorer to writing about psychosocial spirituality and working with the interfaith community.

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Diana deRegnier writes the SpiritLinks column from the San Francisco Bay Area, California on www.religionandspirituality.com . Diana emphasizes humor, pathos and encouragement for a vibrant spirit. She is also webmaster and writer for Spirit Links Newsletter www.spiritlinksnewsletter.org for spiritual explorers of any or no religious affiliation. Diana welcomes email from thoughtful readers. © copyright 2007 by Diana deRegnier