Author Anne Rice, best known for her 1976 novel Interview with a Vampire, died Saturday at age 80. Rice wrote more than 30 Gothic novels, including the Vampire Chronicles series.
"Earlier tonight, my mother, Anne Rice, passed away due to complications resulting from a stroke," her son Christopher Rice posted on Twitter.
From The New York Times:
Born in New Orleans on Oct. 4, 1941, Ms. Rice was most widely known for the novel series "The Vampire Chronicles," the first of which was "Interview With the Vampire," published in 1976. It was adapted into a movie starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas.
Over the next five decades, Ms. Rice would write more than 30 books, more than a dozen of which are part of the vampire series.
Ms. Rice was married to the poet Stan Rice, who died in 2002. They had two children, Michelle, who died of leukemia at 5, and Christopher.
She regularly interacted with her readers on her Facebook page, which has more than a million followers, and her book signings were eccentric shows attracting dancers and fans in costume.
Christopher Rice, also an author, wrote two historical-horror novels with his mother.
"She taught me to embrace my dreams, reject conformity and challenge the dark voices of fear and self-doubt," her son said in a statement. "As a writer she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions. In her final hours, I sat beside her hospital bed in awe of her accomplishments and her courage, awash in memories of a life that took us from the fog laced hills of San Francisco Bay Area to the magical streets of New Orleans to the twinkling stars of Southern California."
