The Vampire Armand was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1998. Armand — who appeared as the enigmatic, dangerous leader of the Théâtre des Vampires in Interview with the Vampire — finally tells his own story. Born Andrei in Kiev in the late 15th century, he was kidnapped by Tartars and sold into slavery in Constantinople before being purchased by the ancient vampire Marius, who brought him to Venice.
Marius — a Roman vampire nearly two thousand years old — is a painter and a humanist who has appointed himself guardian of Akasha and Enkil (the first vampires, held in frozen stasis). He takes the boy Andrei as his apprentice, teaches him to paint icons, and eventually transforms him into a vampire. The Venice sections are Rice at her most sumptuous: the architecture, the light, the artistic culture of the late Renaissance rendered with a sensuality that makes the vampire transformation feel like an extension of aesthetic experience rather than a break from it.
Armand’s subsequent history — his time leading the coven beneath Les Innocents in Paris, his encounter with Lestat (who destroyed the coven’s medieval rituals by refusing to submit to them), his centuries of wandering — is told with an emotional directness that distinguishes this volume from the more philosophical Lestat narratives. Armand is eternally seventeen: beautiful, androgynous, frozen at the threshold of adulthood, and his voice carries a perpetual adolescent intensity that makes his existential questions feel urgent rather than abstract.
Collecting The Vampire Armand
First edition (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1998): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- Very good: $10–$25