only a few of the manyoutlets available to Americans in modern times. Media plays a large role in arousing thepublic’s interest in the fantastic.21 The novels of Anne Rice, a gothic-horror writer, appeal to alarge audience, and her three book series have quite a cult following. Her two main series areThe Vampire Chronicles and The Mayfair Witches.22 The Vampire Chronicles portrays modernvampires through a vampire’s eyes, often as victims of the “dark gift”23 of vampirism, strugglingto come to terms with their nature or accepting it and moving on. A dominant theme in thisseries is “the belief in the supernatural [as being] part of the human soul...”24 These books areromantic, realistic, and supposedly written by various vampires to the mortal world. Because ofthis, a large following of Rice’s characters has developed, especially Lestat de Lioncourt. Lestatis the hypothetical author of The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of theBody Thief, and Memnoch the Devil.25 His fans, including Rice herself, are deeply fascinated bythis “tall, fair-skinned man with a mass of blond hair.”26 They dream of this intriguing vampirestealing into their room with a “graceful, almost feline quality to his movements,”27 movingcloser, “his gray eyes [burning] with an incandescence,”28 and whispering to them someunknown truth that would explain the workings of the universe. Another famous author with alarge cult following is Stephen King.29 His works have gained a great audience not because oftheir characters or stories, but because of King himself. King’s readers are fascinated by themind that can produce such horrifying stories, and they see him as a sort of preternatural being. Many movies and books have been devoted to this ‘king of horror.’30 Both of these authors,Rice and King, along with other writers, journalists, and novelists,...
