The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)

by Anne Rice

I knew that I had come to the most forsaken outpost of the Savage Garden, and that this was my country and I would remain in New Orleans, if New Orleans could only manage to remain. Whatever I suffered should be lessened in this lawless place, whatever I craved should give me more pleasure once I had it in my grasp. And there were moments on that first night in this fetid little paradise when I prayed that in spite of all my secret power, I was somehow kin to every mortal man. Maybe I was not the exotic outcast that I imagined, but merely the dim magnification of every human soul. Old truths and ancient magic, revolution and invention, all conspire to distract us from the passion that in one way or another defeats us all. And weary finally of this complexity, we dream of that long-ago time when we sat upon our mother’s knee and each kiss was the perfect consummation of desire. What can we do but reach for the embrace that must now contain both heaven and hell: our doom again and again and again.