Novelist Anne Rice leaves the vampire Lestat and embraces Christ, "the ultimate supernatural hero" | Lynn Vincent
Though she is a novelist, Anne Rice sees the world the way a painter might, in subtleties of light and shadow: the pale edge of dawn, the flat ink of a starless midnight, goodness for some an elusive beacon, evil an alluring shroud.
She was known for shrouds. Mrs. Rice spent nearly three decades sculpting a reputation as literary queen of the damned—and now, at age 64, she has declared that canon closed. After rejecting her Catholic faith nearly half a century ago, she says she is reconciled with God and dedicating the rest of her life to writing only for—and about—Jesus Christ.
Perilous project
Source material for Christ's childhood is scanty, so Mrs. Rice makes use of what she has, including apocryphal books excluded from the canon of Scripture | Gene Edward Veith
Portraying Christ in literature poses special problems. How to portray someone who is both God and Man? Some authors evoke His deity, portraying His transcendence and majesty or turning Him into a mystical inner presence. But they miss His humanity, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Other authors evoke His humanity, portraying Him as a flesh-and-blood man, often sentimentalized. But they fall short of conveying His divinity.
But Anne Rice, in her novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Knopf, 2005), hits the orthodox balance. She portrays Jesus as a 7-year-old child, but He is more than a child. He plays, He cries, He is dependent on His parents. But when He yearns to see snow, it snows. When His uncle is sick, the young Jesus heals him. Throughout the novel, Jesus tries to understand who He is, piecing clues together and asking questions. But, as a prophet tells Him, "The day will come when You will have to give us the answers."
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No pious baloney
