hunting clubs, alien-searching satellites, and psychics are only a few of the many
             outlets available to Americans in modern times. Media plays a large role in arousing the
             public's interest in the fantastic.21 The novels of Anne Rice, a gothic-horror writer, appeal to a
             large audience, and her three book series have quite a cult following. Her two main series are
             The Vampire Chronicles and The Mayfair Witches.22 The Vampire Chronicles portrays modern
             vampires through a vampire's eyes, often as victims of the "dark gift"23 of vampirism, struggling
             to come to terms with their nature or accepting it and moving on. A dominant theme in this
             series is "the belief in the supernatural [as being] part of the human soul..."24 These books are
             romantic, realistic, and supposedly written by various vampires to the mortal world. Because of
             this, a large following of Rice's characters has developed, especially Lestat de Lioncourt. Lestat
             is the hypothetical author of The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the
             Body Thief, and Memnoch the Devil.25 His
             ...