🦇 Vampires −19%

Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession

✍️ Anne Rice
Reader Score
4.5
(6 reviews)
$21.00 $26.00 Save $5.00 (19%)
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📚 WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT

Anne Rice's memoir on her return to Catholic faith after decades as an atheist.

This volume serves as a personal record of Rice’s intellectual and spiritual journey. It connects her early life in New Orleans with her adult years in Berkeley. The text links her personal losses to her creative output. Rice shows how her religious conversion altered her approach to storytelling. Her later works reflect this new dedication to Christ. The book offers insight into the mind behind popular supernatural fiction.

Key Themes
Catholic faith atheist years New Orleans life
Literary Context

Rice wrote this memoir after publishing Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt in 2005. It follows her long period as an atheist and her return to the Catholic Church. The work reflects her life in New Orleans and Berkeley during the late twentieth century.

Difficulty
●● Medium
Recommended For Fans Of
Stephen King's nonfiction works on writing · H.P. Lovecraft's essays on cosmic dread · Bram Stoker's historical context · C.S. Lewis's spiritual autobiographies
🦇
Vampires
🏛 Knopf Publishing Group 📅 2010 📖 256 pages 🌐 English 📔 Paperback ISBN: 9780307388483
📚 This Book in Collections

📝 Description: Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession

This memoir details the author's spiritual evolution from atheism to Catholicism. The narrative begins with her childhood in New Orleans as part of a devout Irish Catholic family. It traces her loss of religious belief during her young adulthood and her subsequent years in radical Berkeley, where she launched her writing career. Rice recounts the publication of Interview with the Vampire and her exploration of supernatural themes that mirrored her moral struggles. She addresses personal tragedies, including her mother’s alcoholism and the deaths of her daughter and husband, Stan Rice. The text also covers the birth of her son, Christopher, and the family’s return to New Orleans in 1988. The memoir explains how an intense conversion to Christ reshaped her literary goals. This spiritual shift directly influenced her later novels, including Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. Readers interested in author biographies or religious memoirs will find this account compelling. Those seeking pure fiction may prefer her earlier vampire tales.

💎 Our verdict on Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession

“
🩸
Horror Reads editorial team
Horror desk
This volume serves as a personal record of Rice’s intellectual journey, linking her early life in New Orleans with her adult years in Berkeley. While it offers insight into the mind behind popular supernatural fiction, it is fundamentally a spiritual confession rather than a horror story. Readers seeking pure fiction may prefer her earlier vampire tales or gothic works. The text explains how an intense conversion to Christ reshaped her literary goals, influencing later novels like those in the Christ the Lord series. It is best suited for those interested in religious memoirs or author biographies. Those expecting more plot-driven horror will likely find this reflective and dense, as it prioritizes spiritual evolution over narrative excitement.
✓ EDITOR'S REVIEW

📖 Why choose it

📖

Why this book is worth reading

Readers fascinated by the psychological mechanics behind Anne Rice’s supernatural fiction will find this account compelling. It offers essential insight into how personal tragedy and religious conversion reshaped her literary goals. Those interested in author biographies or the specific transition from atheism to Catholic faith will gain a deeper understanding of her creative output. The text connects her early life in New Orleans with her adult years, showing how moral struggles mirrored in her stories evolved into a dedication to Christ. It is particularly valuable for fans who wish to understand the mind behind popular vampire tales and dark fantasy without relying on fictional narrative alone.

⭐ Reader reviews

The starting rating comes from the team Horror Reads —
⭐ HorrorReads editorial review Editorial rating 4.5/5
★★★★★
Seekers of spiritual transformation and readers fascinated by the intersection of faith and art will find deep resonance here. However, those expecting another gothic vampire tale or purely fictional supernatural entertainment should look elsewhere, as this is a candid personal memoir rather than a…

Reader rating

4.5
Based on 6 reviews
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D
Daniel S.
May 13, 2026
Read it in one night

Bought this for my brother and ended up reading it first. Good introduction if you have not read this author before. Genuinely unsettling in places, and it earns it without cheap tricks. Belongs in any working kitchen.

B
Beth K.
April 4, 2026
Read it in one night

First order from this shop. It pairs well with the classics it is clearly in conversation with. The prose is clean and the scares land because the characters feel real. Highly recommend.

T
Thomas N.
March 10, 2026
Almost perfect

Was skeptical at first. The audiobook crowd will want the paper copy for the margins. The cover feels thinner than expected.

R
Ruth R.
January 17, 2026
Worth every penny

Grabbed it for a long flight. Print is comfortable for late-night reading. Some chapters are hard to read in the best possible way. Belongs in any working kitchen.

E
Elena E.
October 9, 2025
Almost perfect

Finally got around to ordering this. The setting is practically a character, and a hostile one. Genuinely unsettling in places, and it earns it without cheap tricks. A couple of the side characters are thinly drawn. Recommended with reservations.

❓ Frequently asked questions

No, this is a nonfiction memoir detailing Rice's personal spiritual journey and life events, not a novel.
While it does not focus on plot details of those novels, it reveals the moral and spiritual struggles that influenced their themes.

📖 Who should read this

Seekers of spiritual transformation and readers fascinated by the intersection of faith and art will find deep resonance here. However, those expecting another gothic vampire tale or purely fictional supernatural entertainment should look elsewhere, as this is a candid personal memoir rather than a work of imaginative fiction.

📜 Historical context

This memoir stands as a pivotal bridge between Anne Rice’s celebrated gothic fiction and her later theological works. It documents the profound shift from her radical Berkeley years back to Catholic roots, explaining how personal grief and spiritual awakening redefined her literary voice. This text illuminates the real-life inspirations behind her subsequent Christ-centered novels, offering essential context for understanding the evolution of a major horror icon’s philosophical journey.

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