I was afraid to read Anne Rice

When I first heard about Anne Rice’s reversion back to the Catholic faith, I was very happy to hear it. When I heard she had also written a novel depicting the early childhood of our Lord, I was afraid to read it.

I was afraid that it would be…I don’t know…blasphemous? Maybe I was prejudging her based on her “new age quasi atheistic” past. But that wasn’t my biggest concern.

My real fear was that she might do a really good job, but mistakenly put in heretical ideas, which I might not be wise enough to pick up on. But then I read something on Anne Rice’s website, a review of her second Jesus novel by Dr. Peter Kreeft. Here’s a sample.

“I have found it hard to persuade people to read Anne Rice’s two ‘Jesus novels’ (this one is a sequel to her Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt), even though I think they are masterpieces. That’s because what they set out to do, most people would label impossible…

Anne Rice’s ‘Jesus novels’ are fictional biographies from the first-person viewpoint of Jesus Himself. Hard enough to write about Him in the third person, but in the first? Yet they are modern realistic historical novels, and their Jesus is the real Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible and the Church. There are no heresies and no Katzantzakis-style corrections or ‘revisionisms’ of the Gospels…”

Certainly if Anne Rice’s Jesus novels got the thumbs up from Dr. Kreeft, I could feel safe reading them…right?

Well, it turns out, I did. I’ve only just finished reading the first novel, Christ the Lord Out of Egypt. I really enjoyed it.

I started the book by reading her Author’s Note at the back. In the note she goes into  detail about her research and her journey—not just writing the book, but also her own conversion story. For some reason, her story—her conversion story—made me feel even more comfortable reading the novel. She is in love with Jesus and His Church. And she feels called to write for Him and about Him.

I’ll post a review of the book tomorrow. I didn’t want this post to get any longer than it already is.