Anne Rice's New Novel a Bit Different

Soon Anne Rice, the famous chronicler of vampires, modern witches and - under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure - of soft-core S&M encounters, will publish "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," a novel about the 7-year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. "I promised," she says, "that from now on I would write only for the Lord." Many say this is the most startling public turnaround since Bob Dylan's "Slow Train Coming" announced that he'd been born again. After 25 novels in 25 years, Rice, 64, hasn't published a book since 2003's "Blood Canticle," the tenth volume of her best-selling vampire series. The author came close to death last year, when she had surgery for an intestinal blockage, and also back in 1998, when she went into a sudden diabetic coma, that same year she returned to the Roman Catholic Church, which she'd left at 18. Stan Rice, her husband of 41 years, died of a brain tumor in 2002. Many believe these recent tradgedies in her life led to the new material. Full Story