‘Violin’ A Great Read
“Violin” By Anne Rice (Knopf, $25.95)
Ghosts of the past are nothing new for Anne Rice; the author has won millions of devotees with characters whose primary calling is confronting demons, both literal and psychological.
But with her latest tale, “Violin,” Rice pits her blisteringly frank prose against ghosts of a much more personal nature - those that have haunted her own life - and in so doing has created her best work since 1990’s “The Witching Hour.”
Many of her previous books have had elements of autobiography, notably the child vampire in “Interview With the Vampire,” who mirrored her own daughter, dead at 5 of leukemia, and the character Michael Curry in “The Witching Hour,” who shared many of Rice’s experiences, characteristics and family ties.
With “Violin,” however, Rice retains only the barest hint of a disguise. Her narrator, Triana, even explains that her name means “three Annes,” just in case we’d missed the significance. Anne Rice, of course, has written under three names - her own, “Anne Rampling” and “A.N. Roquelaure.” Here, she seems to be telling us that the three voices have finally merged.
“Violin” tells the tale of a middle-aged woman who, in the midst of a howling, inconsolable grief over her husband’s death from AIDS, is haunted by a violin-playing ghost named Stefan. Triana, who adores the violin, especially in the symphonies of Beethoven, attempted to learn the instrument as a child but was, to her lasting sorrow, indisputably devoid of talent.
Stefan, his music and his verbal jousting with Triana goad her into jumping off an already unsteady mental platform, straight down into a soul-eating guilt forged from a lifetime of bereavement. Triana’s daughter, husband and parents all have died untimely deaths for which she in some way blames herself.
She remains particularly traumatized over her mother’s death from acute alcoholism when Triana was 14, leaving behind an emotionally chilly father to raise four very disparately tempered daughters. Triana has never forgiven herself for letting her mother die thinking she was unloved, nor for momentarily falling asleep at her sick daughter’s bedside. At that moment, the child’s leukemia (yes, this should sound familiar) claimed her.
Triana’s desperate search for something lasting to latch onto leads her to snatch the ghost’s Stradivarius and cling to it like a psychological lifeboat. An enraged Stefan retaliates by taking Triana on a journey into his past, where she discovers that with this violin, she can play, well enough to draw thousands to hear her.
The violin becomes her salvation, and Rice draws exquisite tension from the reader’s uncertainty as to whether Triana, once she relinquishes the Strad to Stefan, will also sacrifice her redeeming gift.
Almost everything about the story - from the unsuccessful childhood attempts to master the violin to the cemetery where her mother is buried - echoes Anne Rice’s life. The only exception is the husband’s death - Stan Rice is still very much alive; he and their son, Christopher, show up in “Violin” as an ex-husband and stepson.
Novelist Pat Conroy has said that whenever he starts a new book, his family’s first question is, “Who are you betraying this time?” One can’t help but wonder if, through such openhearted disclosures, Rice will likewise fray the threads of her remaining family.
Those who want to discern all the connections between Triana’s infinitely dysfunctional New Orleans clan and Rice’s own might want to read her biography, “Prism of the Night” by Katherine Ramsland. Ramsland’s book, although a trifle dry, provides a thorough grounding in Rice’s past.
For those who would rather just wade right into “Violin” uninitiated, it still makes a great read.
Rice’s last two books, “Memnoch the Devil” and “Servant of the Bones,” with their rambling, apparently unedited prose and puzzling investigations into religion, cost her quite a few fans. If they’re willing to give her another chance, “Violin” - crisp and succinct at a mere 289 pages - should bring them back.