Anne Rice: The Witching Hour

• Mass Market Paperback: 1056 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; later printing edition (March 22, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345384466

"We watch and we are always here" is the motto of the Talamasca, a saintly group with extrasensory powers which has for centuries chronicled the lives of the Mayfairs--a dynasty of witches that brought down a shower of flames in 17th-century Scotland, fled to the plantations of Haiti and on to the New World, where they settled in the haunted city of New Orleans. Rice ( The Queen of the Damned ) plumbs a rich vein of witchcraft lore, conjuring in her overheated, florid prose the decayed antebellum mansion where incest rules, dolls are made of human bone and hair, and violent storms sweep the skies each time a witch dies and the power passes on. Newly annointed is Rowan Mayfair, a brilliant California neurosurgeon kept in ignorance of her heritage by her adoptive parents. She returns to the fold after bringing back Michael Curry from the dead; he, too, has unwanted extrasensory gifts and, like Rowan and the 12 Mayfairs before her, has beheld Lasher: devil, seducer, spirit. Now Lasher wants to come through to this world forever and Rowan is the Mayfair who can open the door. This massive tome repeatedly slows, then speeds when Rice casts off the Talamasca's pretentious, scholarly tones and goes for the jugular with morbid delights, sexually charged passages and wicked, wild tragedy.  

  This book was long, but not excruciatingly so as some have said. It was technically split into four parts, but I would actually split it into three. The first involves setting up the players and giving a very Anne Rice-ian introduction to the story that is set to unfold. The second part is history - the history of the Mayfair Witches, as recorded by the Talamasca, an entity familiar to readers of Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. The third and final part (if we go by my scheme of divisions) is the story in the present time, that of Rowan after the history has been told.
  I have heard others say that they felt the book was rushed at the end and slow through the rest. I disagree, for the most part. The first part was intriguing and told through the viewpoints of various characters, describing the most recent events in the timeline and leading the reader deeper into the mystery. I particularly liked the second part, the history. My little OCD heart had a field day making a family tree. Of course, by the time Rice got to the modern history, there were too many cousins and not enough paper, and she didn't even bother to say who were their parents anyway. Either way, the history was not the boring part.
  The boring part came very nearly at the end. Before Lasher's final appearances the story seemed to slow down almost painfully. It was as if Rice wasn't sure how to begin her endgame. Which, when it came, was suitably horrifying. I have rarely run into real horror in the horror sections of  bookstore, but Rice really knows how to lay it on. She is creepy and disturbing in a way few authors dare approach. The most irritating part, to return to the cons of the story, was Rowan, to be honest. Rice justified her actions, for the most part, but there were times when Rowan fought against events and when they came to pass, she was suddenly all on board with the very things she had previously been against. Her anger at Michael is often irrational as well, even though he seems like the sweetest guy imaginable.
  The ending was dark and suitably soothing as well. The next books will most likely prove to be much more action packed and probably equally traumatizing. Anne Rice has written a mostly self-contained novel that is complex and riveting, that draws you into a world of the macabre and twisted, and makes you enjoy the ride.
  Overall: A
  All of that being said, Rice writes beautifully and often the boring parts don't even seem that boring. She maintains a high level of mystery and leaves the reader wondering if what they think happened is what really happened, even at the end. Her world is captivating and draws the reader in better than almost any writer I can think of off the top of my head. That is why, while there are some boring parts and her characters were at times irritatingly irrationally motivated, she still gets a high score for wonderfully accomplished work.