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Her pain and questions became Interview with the Vampire, a dark book about immortal outsiders who can kill or give eternal life through blood. "A vampire is cast out in the darkness, but refuses to give up on meaning," Rice says. "I was groping through the darkness."

When she read Rice's manuscript, Victoria Wilson, then a new editor at Knopf, remembers "feeling my pulse quicken." "Anne was writing about good and evil," she says, "being on the outside and what that experience was like." Wilson bought the book, which enjoyed modest success.

Rice's next book, The Queen of the Damned (1988), brought her blockbuster status. Numerous books followed, many with themes from Rice's past. "Even though you may not know you are writing from your own life, you make certain choices," observes Wilson, now a vice president and senior editor at Knopf. "You can see what the writer is working out."

"I got my fears out in my books," Rice says.

In 1978, Anne and Stan gave birth to a son, Christopher. A year later, the couple quit drinking. In 1988, the family moved to New Orleans. Anne was now the toast of her hometown. She threw huge parties. Fans stood outside the gates of her Greek Revival townhouse waiting for autographs and pictures. Book sales soared. In a publicity stunt, Rice dressed as a bride and posed in a casket.

Now affluent, Anne added to an extensive collection of dolls and began new collections. Statues of the Catholic saints. Vestments. A library of Catholic books. Her former assistant, Amy Troxler, believes that Rice "still held a strong connection to her Catholic faith."

Public attention had its downside, and Rice admits she can be withdrawn. To complete her novels, Rice had to escape into her room, reading, thinking, writing, and meticulously researching.

In 1993, she says, she became interested in the first century and the Jewish people. Rice recounts, "I remember thinking, 'This doesn't make sense—how did the Jews survive? People don't survive these kinds of things! Their cities [were] smashed. What really happened at the beginning of Christianity?' "

She read obsessively: John A. T. Robinson, Augustine, D. A. Carson, Jacob Neusner, Luke Timothy Johnson, Craig L. Blomberg. Slowly, the historicity of the Resurrection became hard to deny. "Christianity achieved what it did," she says, "because Jesus rose from the dead."

Rice had long conversations with Troxler, who had once studied to be a nun. They read passages from the Bible to each other, as did Anne and her sister Karen. Rice's questions intensified. "The Lord came looking for me," she remembers. "Everywhere I turned, I found images of the Lord and his love."

Rice spent a lot of time sitting cross-legged in her room, her back to the bookcase, surrounded with books. Eventually, she says, "I read myself right back into faith."

In 1998, she came to a crossroads. "I realized I didn't have to find the answer to every question or know who was right on every issue. All I had to do is to love and do my best. The rest he would help me work out."

The tipping point for Rice was a longing to take Communion. Catholics believe Christ is present in the sacraments—that they are his body and his blood. Rice called Troxler, asking, "Will they take me back?"

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December 2005, Vol. 49, No. 12