Very often, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire is given the erroneous distinction of being the first modern vampire novel to be offered to the mainstream media. The novel was published by Knopf in 1976 and adapted for the screen in 1994. King’s vampire tome ‘Salem’s Lot was published in 1975, which means that it runs a tight race with Rice’s Interview, even thought they claim to achieve different goals.
Analysis of 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
In ‘Salem’s Lot, King pulled vampires out of gloomy old castles and moved them next door to the common man. This move can leave a reader lacking trust in their closest ally. King was not the first to do this as Ira Levin and Richard Matheson weaved traditional horror plots in contemporary settings before King arrived on the scene.
Still, King is the first to do this with vampires and he remains consistent with lore established by Bram Stoker. That an old, abandoned house exists in the plot suggests that King reached to the roots of traditional horror in his modern storytelling.
Analysis of Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
Rice’s Interview with the Vampire remains true to the historic and erotic while touching somewhat on a modern timeframe, and is vague on a North American locale. By creating Lestat de Lioncourt, Rice sticks to the aristocratic vampire, but she picks up where Stoker left off in terms of lore and eroticism.
For example, Lestat’s bisexuality adds to the understanding of a vampire’s sexuality, particularly from the scholarly perspective. While Rice does pepper her novel with traditional vampire lore, she adds a few twists of her own. The danger of drinking blood after the victim’s heart has stopped did not exist until Interview. Likewise, the vampire transformation of all ages, including children, had yet to be examined.
How 'Salem's Lot and Interview With the Vampire are Alike
Though the publication dates are only a year apart, the difference between King’s ‘Salem’s Lot, and Rice’s Interview, are that King created contemporary vampires, while remaining traditional. Rice, on the other hand, kept on with European upper crust vampires, but added to the vampire legend in ways that King did not.
Novels that followed in the 80s and 90s by other notable, and sometimes less notable, authors have often mimicked Rice’s success, while others followed the tradition of ‘Salem’s Lot. In the forward to his 2005 novel Midnight Mass, F. Paul Wilson expressed his own desire to pay tribute to King’s novel. What might be important to note is that much of each plot is rooted in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which remains a relevant text to this day.
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