The vampire Louis sits down for an interview, and starts recounting his life story. He was born in Louisiana when it was still French territory, and lived on a large estate with his family. His devout younger brother dies in an unusual accident, and while still mourning him, Louis meets another vampire, Lestat, who converts Louis to a vampire in turn, unwillingly.
Louis still continues to run his estate, while the cruel and cunning Lestat grudgingly teaches him the ways of the vampire. Louis gets his remaining family well settled, and moves with Lestat to New Orleans. There, he plans to escape from the confining influence of Lestat. Foreseeing this, Lestat makes a young 5-year-old orphan girl, Claudia into a vampire. This is a particularly cruel act, as she will now be an immortal, but forever be trapped in a child’s body. Louis is loathe to abandon Claudia to her fate with Lestat, and continues to remain.
Eventually, Claudia and Louis attempt to kill Lestat in a fire, and escape to Europe on a ship. They search for more of their kind Romania, but the vampires they find are mindless reanimated corpses, vastly different from themselves. They eventually reach Paris, where they chance upon a theatre of vampires, where they meet several vampires like themselves, including the sauve and elegant Armand. But it turns out Lestat survived their attack, and in an orgy of revenge, all the vampires of the theatre and Claudia are all killed. Armand and Louis tour the world together for several decades following this.
Louis suspects Lestat escaped, and is proven right when he returns to New Orleans, to find Lestat greatly weakened but still clinging on.
Louis muses on the nature of a vampire, the psychology of a vampire and the impact of immortality, and how it is more of a curse than a boon. ‘One evening, the vampire simply rises and realizes what he has feared perhaps for decades, that he simply wants no more of life at any cost’.
The writing is very descriptive, and the settings, houses, landscape and architecture is painted wonderfully using words. The prose is a little long-winded and Louis tends to muse a lot on his lot in life, often coming across as whiny. On the whole, a great read and a different look at vampire lore.