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Welcome to My Site...
I wanted to put a page together that compiles everything I could find
on the Internet with what I already have about Anne Rice's Lives of the Mayfair Witches. There are some good sites and
images and there's so much more that could be added that I thought it would be fun to do it. I hope you enjoy it.
I am a big fan of Lives of the Mayfair Witches, a series of books written
by Anne Rice about the Mayfair Family and its central characters, the Mayfair Witches. I first read Lasher in the
summer of 1995 and was so intrigued by the story that I had to read its prequel, The Witching Hour, and then its sequel,
Taltos. I spent the fall of 1995 reading those books and poring over The Witches' Companion, which I like to
credit as being my first step toward a higher education.
Obviously, I was thrilled to see the Mayfairs appear in later Vampire Chronicles, Blackwood Farm and Blood
Canticle. I liked Merrick, but was disappointed that the First Street Mayfairs made little or no appearance in
it. So I focus mainly on those books that the First Street Mayfairs do appear in, though I have dedicated a page to Merrick
on this site.
I don't recall being a fan of any one thing for so many years (except maybe
Young Guns) so I thought that in this age of Internet, there was no way I could just not share my thoughts on these
books. Hopefully, I do them justice in terms of factoids and impressions.
So, please do come on in and look around! I write most of the text on the Parlor myself,
and create fun graphics that I hope will help to illustrate the Mayfair Witches as Anne Rice described them in the novels.
There's a lot to see, so please feel free to take all the time you want to explore and have fun!
Back to
The Parlor Porch
~My Mayfair Collection~
and Social Media
These first three books are the copies I bought in 1995 and took right home
to read. They are well read and well loved.
This book to the right is the book I credit with beginning my higher education
by reigniting my interest in the world...
The copies I bought in 1995 that I made into a graphic with the cover art
from an edition of Interview With the Vampire. I think the cover art was done by Eve Hall. It also includes the graphic
created from my 3D model of the Brevard-Rice house and portrait of Deborah Mayfair.
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My collection also includes Anazon Kindle copies of the three Lives of the Mayfair
Witches novels, and the three Vampire Chronicles novels Merrick Mayfair and the Mayfair Witches appear in.
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The Parlor Porch
A Little Story
I remember reading through Interview With the Vampire when I was
about 17, when I learned it was going to be made into a movie. This was the summer of 1993. I knew nothing about
the past hassles of getting it to the big screen, only that it was in preproduction and Tom Cruise was cast as Lestat.
I learned then that the book I had bought my mother as a Christmas gift one year (because I knew she had liked The Feast
of All Saints) was set in New Orleans, a city I was then and continue to be fascinated with. I hope to
visit some day, even in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav. So I picked it up out of curiosity though the story
didn't really "grab" me at the time.
My mother had other titles by Anne Rice, one of which was The Witching Hour.
It was the blue mass market edition she had and I remember thinking that it was huge. I never took the opportunity to
read it then. Unfortunately, that copy was lost in a fire the summer just before the movie Interview With the Vampire
was released, but I would have recognized the book cover and title anywhere.
The movie Interview With the Vampire was released in the fall of 1994, and
I went to see it twice. Even though I had also liked Bram Stoker's Dracula (still one of my favorite films)
which had been released in 1992 and which I had seen in the summer of 1993 (and read the book around the same time I read
Interview), I was not a vampire fan. I didn't really understand them or their appeal at the time. I also
felt odd about indulging in something I knew my mother was also a fan of. It isn't that it wasn't cool; it was that
my mother and I were not very close when I was a teenager because we didn't get along when I was younger. Of course,
teens feel a bit squeamish about identifying with their parents on such an important level. As I would later learn,
there is much that my mother and I have in common and I now give credit to Anne Rice and Lasher for providing the intial
step for us to be closer.
In the summer of 1995, I stopped at Albertson's for some groceries and as was my
habit, I stopped by the paperback stands. I saw the title Lasher jump out at me. That caught my attention.
The title was catchy, I saw that Anne Rice had written it, wondered if my mother had this book, and picked it up to look at
it. At first, I thought it would be a book set in the past, which is half true, in the same vein as Interview,
and of course, it was about witches. I thought it would be some medieval fantasy. The witches were one thing,
but the concept of an enduring specter with considerable influence on all aspects of the lives of living, modern women
as well as ulterior motives for them fascinated me. I bought the book, and began to read...
Someone else at the nursing home where I worked must have liked it too because that
copy disappeared out of the breakroom. I had not been issued a locker because they were "all full". As it turned
out, my mother did indeed have a trade paperback copy of Lasher for me to borrow while I saved for a new copy of my
own. I picked it up the same night she gave me some cooking utensils for my sparsely appointed, practically unfurnished
apartment.
Though I had had a couple of boyfriends and various roommies live with me at the
apartment/duplex I lived in at the time, I was by then mercifully alone. I made a pallet of comforters, quilts and afghans
on the living room floor in front of my TV and VCR and right before my little bookshelf with the little reading light and
the night jasmine incense (how appropriate!). There, I would take my plates of Noodle Roni and Velveeta Shells &
Cheese and my teas and hot chocolate, sit or lay down on my palette, and read my books.
Once I read Lasher, I HAD to find out what had happened before, so off I went to
Fred Meyer and grabbed a copy of the same book, same edition of The Witching Hour that my mother had before the fire.
I took it right home to the designated reading spot and there I stayed excepting work, food and bathroom breaks. Taltos
followed, and I hopped in place at Waldenbooks until I could get my hands on The Witches' Companion, to the amusement
of the bookstore staff. I paid a hard earned $30.00 for it, money I would probably have been advised to spend on
groceries or something, but this was food! Food for my mind, heart and soul. How could this not
be a necessary expenditure?!
I pored through that book, absorbing the information in it and reigniting my interest
in history, religion, philosophy, and the subject that turned into my major when I went back to school, anthropology
(I have a second major in philosophy, with courses in religious studies and psychology).
This was the first time in a few years that I had found something that I liked, something
that I picked out on my own without any prodding or urging from someone else. It was quite the opposite when you think
about my hesitation due to not wanting to follow something just because my mother did. I ended up loving the books
for themselves and they woke me up, stimulated my mind, made me want to solve a few problems in my life.
As Michael Curry said to Mona of his favorite books, rereading my favorite books
are like listening to my favorite song over and over again. It's lovely and rejuvenating to revisit them again and again...
Back to
The Parlor Porch
Parlor Familiar Memorial
My Precious Darling
Isadora
"Izzy"
2001 ~ 2017
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