Collection
Description
An intimate memoir of Anne Rice's Catholic girlhood, her unmaking as a devout believer, and her return to the Church--what she calls a decision of the heart. Moving from her New Orleans childhood in the 1940s and '50s, with all its religious devotions, through how she slowly lost her belief in God, the book recounts Anne's years in radical Berkeley, where she wrote Interview with the Vampire (a lament for her lost faith) and where she came to admire the principles of secular humanists. She writes about loss and alienation (her mother's drinking, the deaths of her young daughter and later, her husband); about the birth of her son, Christopher; and about how, after 38 years as an atheist, she once again came to believe in Christ.--From publisher description.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member saskreader
Being a former Anne Rice fan who hasn't picked up one of her new releases since Memnoch the Devil, I was initially interested in reading this memoir to find out how Rice feels about writing her decidedly un-Christian novels now that she is once again a practicing Catholic. Rice wrote of
I wonder if Rice's turning away from God in her college years would have happened if not for two influences in her life: (1) living in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 60s when everyone was questioning everything anyway; and (2) the death of her young daughter at this time. Rice feels that her novels reflect her subconscious journey from question-filled atheism back to a meaningful understanding of God.
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supernatural beings such as vampires and witches living in a Godless world engaging in perversion and violence. She also wrote several erotic novels under pseudonyms. How does she now feel about continuing to collect royalties from these "profane" works? Essentially, she is not apologetic for her past works but instead believes that her faith in God now is all that matters and she has committed herself to writing for God.I wonder if Rice's turning away from God in her college years would have happened if not for two influences in her life: (1) living in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 60s when everyone was questioning everything anyway; and (2) the death of her young daughter at this time. Rice feels that her novels reflect her subconscious journey from question-filled atheism back to a meaningful understanding of God.
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LibraryThing member hermit
This is a spiritual memoir by the author of many novels on vampires, sexuality and pagan themes; Anne Rice. Rice begins by recounting her devout Catholic upbringing in New Orleans where as a child she had considered becoming a sister cloistered within a convent. The author is descriptive of her
The author then seems to lose detail and gives a brief glimpse of her loss of faith and turning to the atheism she proclaimed for decades. There is not an explanation of what jolted her to not only question her faith, but to turn her back on Christ. Though she reference a key turning point was a comment from a single person which I found as a simple excuses to not explore the real reasons she ran into the darkness. But then again she was attending the great liberal colleges of today, in the author's case these were the San Francisco State College and University of California Berkeley, where peer pressure most have been great especially during the 1960's..
As the memoir quickly moves beyond this part of her life, thirty-eight years, she starts what I believe is the reason she wrote this book. To share her path back to the light, faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ. With the words of a well versed novelist she shares of her desire to travel and how where ever she went she always sought out Catholic churches to visit and how they moved her. The imagery that brought back the memories of her childhood faith that would drive her to seek what was missing in her life, the Word. She shares openly her hard road back to her faith and the one true Apostolic Church of Christ where she renews her faith and rejoin the body of Christ in the Roman Catholic Church.
As Mrs. Rice open her private life and struggles with faith to the world I see it as another step she feels she must take on the right path to developing her true faith. And if by chance it aids others to not only understand the transformation she is going through but perhaps even think for themselves and read or re-read the Gospels she would have accomplished her unspoken goal.
It does not matter if you agree with the author, for this is her memoir and struggle with her personal faith. The book reads as an honest self examination that she needed to see in the written word in order to aid her in her quest to reclaim her christian faith. I pray that this writing has helped her in her spiritual growth and that it may help others in theirs. And as she found a renewed faith in God she where learned that Christ commands us to love one another.
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childhood life in New Orleans and the Catholic upbringing she had. She shares her fascination of various saints she was drawn too. She was a Catholic up until the time she went off to California to attend college.The author then seems to lose detail and gives a brief glimpse of her loss of faith and turning to the atheism she proclaimed for decades. There is not an explanation of what jolted her to not only question her faith, but to turn her back on Christ. Though she reference a key turning point was a comment from a single person which I found as a simple excuses to not explore the real reasons she ran into the darkness. But then again she was attending the great liberal colleges of today, in the author's case these were the San Francisco State College and University of California Berkeley, where peer pressure most have been great especially during the 1960's..
As the memoir quickly moves beyond this part of her life, thirty-eight years, she starts what I believe is the reason she wrote this book. To share her path back to the light, faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ. With the words of a well versed novelist she shares of her desire to travel and how where ever she went she always sought out Catholic churches to visit and how they moved her. The imagery that brought back the memories of her childhood faith that would drive her to seek what was missing in her life, the Word. She shares openly her hard road back to her faith and the one true Apostolic Church of Christ where she renews her faith and rejoin the body of Christ in the Roman Catholic Church.
As Mrs. Rice open her private life and struggles with faith to the world I see it as another step she feels she must take on the right path to developing her true faith. And if by chance it aids others to not only understand the transformation she is going through but perhaps even think for themselves and read or re-read the Gospels she would have accomplished her unspoken goal.
It does not matter if you agree with the author, for this is her memoir and struggle with her personal faith. The book reads as an honest self examination that she needed to see in the written word in order to aid her in her quest to reclaim her christian faith. I pray that this writing has helped her in her spiritual growth and that it may help others in theirs. And as she found a renewed faith in God she where learned that Christ commands us to love one another.
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LibraryThing member StephenBarkley
What does it take for an atheist who authored the famous Vampire novels to return to the faith of her childhood—and to live out that faith in her publishing commitments? Nothing but the love of Jesus.
This book will move you. There’s an honest simplicity to it that many spiritual works lack. In
"If this path to God is an illusion, then the story is worthless. If the path is real, then we have something here that may matter to you as well as to me."
This book will move you. There’s an honest simplicity to it that many spiritual works lack. In
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her words:"If this path to God is an illusion, then the story is worthless. If the path is real, then we have something here that may matter to you as well as to me."
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LibraryThing member judithrs
Called out of Darkness: a Spiritual Confession. Anne Rice. 2008. This is the first Anne Rice book I have read. I tried to read one that Angela and Chris liked that was set in New Orleans, but just couldn’t get into it. However, Rice’s return to Catholicism intrigued me. I really enjoyed reading
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about her childhood in New Orleans and her college years during which she left the church and became an intellectual atheist. I find it hard to believe that she knew so little about the changes in the Church after Vatican II since I was aware of them long before I ever had any thoughts of becoming a Catholic. Her return was a matter of finally letting go and coming to truly believe that EVERYTHING is in God’s hands, which is what we all struggle to do. Show Less
LibraryThing member debs4jc
This is a fascinating look at the spiritual journey of a gifted writer. Anne Rice describes her Catholic childhood in detail (maybe a bit too much detail, but not knowing much about this type of upbringing I found it interesting). Through the ups and downs of her life she took her faith seriously
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and wanted to live a life of significance. She even wanted to be a priest..or at least a nun. Of course she eventually broke with the church and lived as an athiest for many years. Her return to the faith and how it has shaped her life and her writing make for some interesting listening. I definitely recommend this audiobook (or book) to anyone who is a fan of Rice and also to those interested in spiritual memoirs. Rice's journey of faith is well told and will give you much to reflect upon. Show Less
LibraryThing member zimbawilson
A very dissapointing book in my opinion. Rice spends far too much time describing her childhood and the Catholic Church and not nearly enough time explaining what drew her back. She writes about all the rituals and practices of the Church as well as descibing in great detail seemingly ever single
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building she ever walked into between the ages of 5-18. Then she glosses over her 38 years of atheism before talking about her miracle reconversion. She speaks of world trips she took where she began feeling God haunting her until she just gave in and went back to church. What is missing is any real insight into what propelled her mind into this state. She barely mentions the death of her daughter and what effect it may have played on her mental state. As a lapsed Catholic myself, I was hoping for something I could relate to but found virtually nothing. I came away feeling like Anne Rice could really benefit from some serious pyschotherapy and actually delve into a number of issues from childhood to the present that have made her who she is. I think she is just as lost as she was when she was an atheist. Show Less
LibraryThing member phoenixcomet
Anne Rice has always been and always will be a talented writer. For 37 years, she abandoned Catholicism for Atheism after a deeply rich Catholic upbringing. In her late 50's her heart opens again to the mysteries and richness of God and how she personally changed her life to support her renewed
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faith. Show Less
LibraryThing member SamSattler
Anne Rice seemed to come out of nowhere in 1976 when she struck publishing gold with Interview with the Vampire, the novel that opened the door for the countless vampire novels and movies that have followed it. Rice had been published before under the name Anne Rampling, and had even published some
By the time Rice wrote Interview with the Vampire, she had lost her faith in Catholicism and was an atheist. Anne Rice was, in fact, an atheist for 38 years of her life despite the unusually strong ties she and her family have with the Catholic Church. It was only in the late nineties that she felt that her “faith in atheism was cracking,” and that she needed to return to her Christianity. Rice’s conversion did not take place in some magical flash of insight, or even in a matter of days or weeks. It was a gradual process, and as she puts it, “It wasn’t until the summer of 2002 that my commitment to Jesus Christ became complete.”
Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession is Anne Rice’s story. It begins with her upbringing in New Orleans deep in the heart of a neighborhood in which everyone she knew or ran across was Catholic. Rice was so dedicated to a religious life that, as a young girl, she decided that she wanted to be a Catholic priest. She attended Catholic schools, went to church several times a week, and was so ready to spend her life in the service of the Church that she did not even consider settling for a position as a nun - and was shocked to learn that spending her life as a Catholic priest would be impossible.
Rice would finally be exposed to a wider world when she moved to Denton, Texas, to study at Texas Woman’s University. There Rice found herself surrounded by students who had a much better sense of contemporary literature and who discussed topics that had never concerned her. She would begin to lose her faith almost immediately, but it was a well-meaning Catholic priest who, upon learning of her childhood background, pushed her over the edge toward atheism by strongly advising her that she could “never be happy outside the Catholic Church. You’ll find nothing but misery outside the Catholic Church. For a Catholic like you, there is no life outside the Catholic Church.” Something in the 18-year old student revolted at those words, and “when she left the room,” Anne Rice was no longer a Catholic – nor would she be for the next 38 years.
Called Out of Darkness is a remarkable memoir, one in which its author shares the intimate details of her upbringing, including the tragedy of her alcoholic mother, her tremendous problems with learning to read effectively, her marriage, the death of her young daughter and her husband, and her deep relationship with the city of New Orleans and its architecture.
Anne Rice has lived a fascinating life, one of which most of her longtime fans have only been vaguely aware up to now. This memoir explains her rather jarring transition, one that startled her readers, from writing novels about vampires and witches to writing fiction dedicated to telling the story of Christianity (Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana and Angel Time: The Song of the Seraphim, Book 1). Anne Rice fans will find this memoir particularly interesting, but her story is so unusual that even those who have not read her novels will be fascinated by what she has to say.
Rated at: 4.0
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erotica as A.N. Roquelaure, but with the help of Vampire Lestat, she became a star in the publishing world. Her huge success with the first novel would lead to some fifteen novels on vampires and witches.By the time Rice wrote Interview with the Vampire, she had lost her faith in Catholicism and was an atheist. Anne Rice was, in fact, an atheist for 38 years of her life despite the unusually strong ties she and her family have with the Catholic Church. It was only in the late nineties that she felt that her “faith in atheism was cracking,” and that she needed to return to her Christianity. Rice’s conversion did not take place in some magical flash of insight, or even in a matter of days or weeks. It was a gradual process, and as she puts it, “It wasn’t until the summer of 2002 that my commitment to Jesus Christ became complete.”
Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession is Anne Rice’s story. It begins with her upbringing in New Orleans deep in the heart of a neighborhood in which everyone she knew or ran across was Catholic. Rice was so dedicated to a religious life that, as a young girl, she decided that she wanted to be a Catholic priest. She attended Catholic schools, went to church several times a week, and was so ready to spend her life in the service of the Church that she did not even consider settling for a position as a nun - and was shocked to learn that spending her life as a Catholic priest would be impossible.
Rice would finally be exposed to a wider world when she moved to Denton, Texas, to study at Texas Woman’s University. There Rice found herself surrounded by students who had a much better sense of contemporary literature and who discussed topics that had never concerned her. She would begin to lose her faith almost immediately, but it was a well-meaning Catholic priest who, upon learning of her childhood background, pushed her over the edge toward atheism by strongly advising her that she could “never be happy outside the Catholic Church. You’ll find nothing but misery outside the Catholic Church. For a Catholic like you, there is no life outside the Catholic Church.” Something in the 18-year old student revolted at those words, and “when she left the room,” Anne Rice was no longer a Catholic – nor would she be for the next 38 years.
Called Out of Darkness is a remarkable memoir, one in which its author shares the intimate details of her upbringing, including the tragedy of her alcoholic mother, her tremendous problems with learning to read effectively, her marriage, the death of her young daughter and her husband, and her deep relationship with the city of New Orleans and its architecture.
Anne Rice has lived a fascinating life, one of which most of her longtime fans have only been vaguely aware up to now. This memoir explains her rather jarring transition, one that startled her readers, from writing novels about vampires and witches to writing fiction dedicated to telling the story of Christianity (Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana and Angel Time: The Song of the Seraphim, Book 1). Anne Rice fans will find this memoir particularly interesting, but her story is so unusual that even those who have not read her novels will be fascinated by what she has to say.
Rated at: 4.0
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LibraryThing member Aerow
A fantastic spiritual memoir.
LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
In this autobiography, Rice describes her upbringing in the Catholic religion, her subsequent renunciation and final reconciliation. What struck me in this book, is that Rice has always been profoundly religious, mystical even, but cannot envision faith outside of organized religion. She is an
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extremely sensorial being, responding to the stimuli of the church: paintings, music, colour and smells are all part of the religious experience. These are what makes her fiction so appealing - this constant call to the senses. She moves in the world very intuitively and seeks the guidance of a god to explain it - it's an appealing, albeit not very rational, way of explaining life and its experiences. I'm not sure this book is very convincing for non-believers, however, because Rice feels rather than thinks her surroundings. Show Less
LibraryThing member chrystal
I loved this book. Being a lifelong Anne Rice fan and a convert to Catholocism, this was a book I wanted to read. Her story of childhood in the church, middle age atheism, and now her return to the church was inspiring. She still struggles with the questions. The impact of this book, the miracle
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that she points out and I had never thought of before, is that God came to earth in the form of Jesus as a BABY. He went through the human experience. I don' t think I had ever grasped the significance of this before until she spelled it out. And also, that LOVE is the basis of all, you must love everyone, and yes, that is very difficult but if you can try, won't your life be so much better? I will recommend to all my catholic friends. Show Less
LibraryThing member lindap69
I know Rice was trying to give the reader a feel for the Catholic church and her community as she was growing up, but I found those first chapters very dry and uninspiring. I did find some thought provoking ideas later in the book
LibraryThing member mykl-s
Yep, thats what growing up RC in the 50s was like.
LibraryThing member fulner
This book was quite different from what I had expected. It is the personal faith journey of the author most famously known for being the author of "Interview with the Vampire"
Anne Rice's journey from Atheism to Catholicism I expected to be focused on her struggles as an Atheist, but actually it
Rice never seems to be what I would classify as a hard-core atheist, even if she herself did. I would only classify "Evangelical Atheists" not someone who took her vacations to visit churches and holy sites.
I was hoping for some data that would help me witness to my atheist friends, and I don't think any of that here is going to do so. The only ting I think that may be most helpful for me on this is "pray" and that it was much easier to come back to the church at the point in her life that she did, AFTER all of lives important moments (marriage, kids, etc.) so she didn't have to deal with the Churches hard teachings on sexuality, birth-control, etc.
There was a bunch of fairly interesting information about living in pre-vatican Catholicism.
It was certainly better than the previous Fiction writing that I had read by Rice (Out of Egypt) and it may be very interesting for fans of her more famous works (the Vampire Diaries series)
Anne Rice's journey from Atheism to Catholicism I expected to be focused on her struggles as an Atheist, but actually it
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focuses mostly on her childhood growing up in a pre-Vatican II Catholic Church. Rice never seems to be what I would classify as a hard-core atheist, even if she herself did. I would only classify "Evangelical Atheists" not someone who took her vacations to visit churches and holy sites.
I was hoping for some data that would help me witness to my atheist friends, and I don't think any of that here is going to do so. The only ting I think that may be most helpful for me on this is "pray" and that it was much easier to come back to the church at the point in her life that she did, AFTER all of lives important moments (marriage, kids, etc.) so she didn't have to deal with the Churches hard teachings on sexuality, birth-control, etc.
There was a bunch of fairly interesting information about living in pre-vatican Catholicism.
It was certainly better than the previous Fiction writing that I had read by Rice (Out of Egypt) and it may be very interesting for fans of her more famous works (the Vampire Diaries series)
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LibraryThing member xicanti
Bestselling author Anne Rice writes about her spiritual journey. She hasn't formally broken the work up, but I'd argue that the book is basically divided into three parts: her childhood, which was heavily religious; her atheistic adulthood; and her return to Catholicism at the age of fifty-seven.
I had a rather strange reaction to this book. I love Rice's work. I love her visual imagery; her ornate and detailed prose; the religious and artistic preoccupations that drive each of her novels. I love the way she brings her settings to life. I love the Catholic elements in her work. Even before she regained her faith, she taught me so much about the Christian church. I feel confident in saying that my interest in comparative religion dates to my first exposure to her work.
So the first segment, (her childhood), had all the right elements. New Orleans and its Catholic community are depicted very well indeed. The prose is heady. The Catholicism is described in great detail. And yet, I just wasn't feeling it.
I hate to say this, but I came perilously close to abandoning the book. It wouldn't click for me. I was pretty upset. It's one thing when you want to abandon a book by some random author you've only just met. It's another thing entirely when you find yourself tempted to put down a very personal book by one of your favourite authors.
I took a longish break from it, then gave it one more go late on a Sunday evening. And wouldn't you know it, but I didn't willingly put it down again until I'd read the last page.
I'm not sure whether Rice hit her stride as a writer or I hit mine as a reader. Either way, I found her adulthood and return to faith personal, compelling, and impossible to put down. She got me thinking about so many things: gender issues, childhood versus adulthood, what it means to be a good person, her body of work, my own faith. I'm surprised, too, at how she's discussed faith without emphasizing any particular method of worship. She is, of course, a practicing Catholic; she personally believes in and follows the doctrines of that particular church. But nowhere does she push Catholicism as the right and only way. She doesn't even speak poorly of atheists or those of other faiths. Rather, she emphasizes the goodness she's found in people of all beliefs and of none. She writes about love as the core tenet of Christianity, and about her own struggles to embrace love and lead a love-filled life.
I most certainly recommend this to anyone interested in religion. I think it's relevant to people of all faiths; I'm not a Christian myself, but I still got a lot out of it.
(A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina).
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Within these three segments, she discusses the ways in which religion influenced each stage in her life.I had a rather strange reaction to this book. I love Rice's work. I love her visual imagery; her ornate and detailed prose; the religious and artistic preoccupations that drive each of her novels. I love the way she brings her settings to life. I love the Catholic elements in her work. Even before she regained her faith, she taught me so much about the Christian church. I feel confident in saying that my interest in comparative religion dates to my first exposure to her work.
So the first segment, (her childhood), had all the right elements. New Orleans and its Catholic community are depicted very well indeed. The prose is heady. The Catholicism is described in great detail. And yet, I just wasn't feeling it.
I hate to say this, but I came perilously close to abandoning the book. It wouldn't click for me. I was pretty upset. It's one thing when you want to abandon a book by some random author you've only just met. It's another thing entirely when you find yourself tempted to put down a very personal book by one of your favourite authors.
I took a longish break from it, then gave it one more go late on a Sunday evening. And wouldn't you know it, but I didn't willingly put it down again until I'd read the last page.
I'm not sure whether Rice hit her stride as a writer or I hit mine as a reader. Either way, I found her adulthood and return to faith personal, compelling, and impossible to put down. She got me thinking about so many things: gender issues, childhood versus adulthood, what it means to be a good person, her body of work, my own faith. I'm surprised, too, at how she's discussed faith without emphasizing any particular method of worship. She is, of course, a practicing Catholic; she personally believes in and follows the doctrines of that particular church. But nowhere does she push Catholicism as the right and only way. She doesn't even speak poorly of atheists or those of other faiths. Rather, she emphasizes the goodness she's found in people of all beliefs and of none. She writes about love as the core tenet of Christianity, and about her own struggles to embrace love and lead a love-filled life.
I most certainly recommend this to anyone interested in religion. I think it's relevant to people of all faiths; I'm not a Christian myself, but I still got a lot out of it.
(A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina).
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Publication
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
Original publication date
2008
Pages
245
ISBN
0307268276 / 9780307268273