Christ the Lord by Anne Rice

Anne Rice has completely lost her mind.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the woman has had a hard life. No really. Her first child, a beautiful little girl, died of leukemia before the age of six. Her husband fell into such an abysmal depression that he started drinking and apparently didn't stop. Her son outted himself in a part of the world that does not take all the kindly to gays.

Then her husband died a horrible death and she found out she had Type 1 diabetes.

I don't care how much money you have, you can't buy your way out of that kind of misery.

But something happened along the way that made Anne Rice not Anne Rice.

I'm guessing she not only turned her back on her Catholic girlhood, but did everything she could in her heart and mind to negate God and Christ and the slightest possibility of redemption. I read "Interview with a Vampire" (while in San Francisco, creepy), I burned through Lestat the way he burned through me and not too long after that, I just got lost without a roadmap to the characters and plot machinations. I read one of the witches of Mayfair books but it seemed like an elaborate Southern Gothic retelling of the plot of "Ghostbusters".

It's been quite a long time since I read an Anne Rice book. I may go back and read the older ones, but I doubt I'll read any more once I drag myself through "Christ the Lord."

"Christ the Lord" has Jesus as the first person narrator, as a seven year old boy. What do you expect a seven year old boy to write, despite the power of the Divine in him? "It was hot. We ran away from the soldiers. A man was hurt. No one helped him."

Yeah. That's pretty much it.

I saw a snippet of one review that said Anne Rice had taken the mystery, the majesty, the intrigue, the human failings of the Gospels and flattened it into something bland and boring. And the review is right.

I keep waiting for something to happen that elicits a real reaction in the narrator.

I went onto Anne Rice's official web site and was met there with writing that again dumbfounded me.

Part I: "I consecrate myself and my work to the Lord." I don't care if people do just that, but it scares me when they insist on telling me.

Part II: A recording you can't turn off of "Ave Maria" playing in the background.

She still has the same moral issues to cope with that we all do - her faith, Biblically speaking, condemns her son's sexuality but how can she bring herself to condemn it?

She seems to be perpetually apologizing for the Vampire Chronicles and urges Christian writers to avoid them.

I'm sorry she's suffered, but I think this last bout has left her completely unhinged.

Or if she regards this as a coming to her senses, I'm glad she didn't do it before she created "Interview with the Vampire" and "The Vampire Lestat".