Long before I ever picked up this novel to read, I examined various reviews written about it. They were conflicting at best.  One person would give “five stars” and the next would tear the novel piece by piece in small bits of flying dust that left me feeling like it might be a waste of time to pick up the book. But I had to remember that Armand remains one of my favorite characters in the Vampire Chronicles, so despite what anyone else might say, I finally opened it to the first page and began to read.

Now, right from the start I was having trouble reconciling the Armand who spoke in this book with the Armand from Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat.  While, yes, Armand is an immortal in the body of a seventeen year old boy, his character in the past has seemed ageless and downright frightening.  In fact, it is the very angelic nature of Armand’s appearance that causes such feelings of horror in the previous novels.  Imagining the boy who might look like “Verrochio’s David” as he cuts the hands off the immortal Nicholas, well, that’s something of a paradox to anyone. 

But during The Vampire Armand and, in fact, through his few appearances in Memnoch the Devil Armand no longer seemed the villain but, rather, the worn down immortal whose soul is tired of switching identities and being forced into this era and that.  At the end of the prior novel he did attempt to kill himself.  It is during his own story that we learn why something such as Veronica’s Veil (which was the reason he tried to sacrifice himself) would be important to someone such as him.

That is the main point of The Vampire Armand.  The story is told in dictation to David Talbot, a recently made vampire who has requested that Armand share the story of his life experiences.  This Armand does with great detail except, perhaps, in those instances where he is deliberately vague so that the reader has some idea of how he felt when he himself was unable to remember specific events of his life.  Anne Rice recovered her writing style with ease during this novel and the one previous to it, reclaiming my appreciation after the small failures she suffered in Tale of the Body Thief. 

I was enthralled with the events of Armand’s life, taken from his home and eventually sold into the protection of Marius De Romanus.  From there I took great pleasure in the tale (admittedly being a little biased in the presence of my two favorite characters).  I only dreaded the moment when I knew it would end, for of course anyone who has read the previous novels (or even, perhaps, seen the movie) knows that Armand is destined to be torn from Marius and become the leader of a Paris coven.

Thankfully Anne Rice did not cover old ground with a recounting of the tales from her first two novels in which Lestat and Louis first encounter Armand.  In fact that period was touched upon only briefly, highlighting the most important moments before turning the pace of the novel back to the present day.  From there she picked up the questions left to the readers from Memnoch the Devil and the beginning of Armand’s tale (such as who are the mortals Benji and Sybelle, and why does he care for them so?).

The end of the novel left me a little surprised and definitely sympathetic toward Armand.  And thankfully by then I also understood how and why his personality could change so drastically over the course of his 500+ years.  So despite the apprehension with which I approached the book, I was not disappointed and, in fact, renewed in my faith of Rice’s writing.  I am replacing this book with Merrick, the seventh novel in her Vampire Chronicles which also crosses stories with her Witches of Mayfair series.

ISBN: 0345434803
Edition: M.M.Paperback