The literary world is mourning the loss of famed author Anne Rice, the mind behind Interview With the Vampire.
The gothic fiction writer died on Saturday, Dec. 11, two months after she celebrated her 80th birthday. Anne’s son, Christopher, also an author, announced his mother’s passing.
“It breaks my heart to bring you this sad news,” he wrote on Anne’s social media accounts. “Earlier tonight, Anne passed away due to complications resulting from a stroke. She left us almost nineteen years to the day my father, her husband Stan, died.”
Anne’s husband and Christopher’s father, poet and painter Stan Rice, died from brain cancer at age 60 in 2002. Anne is also preceded in death by their daughter Michele, who died of leukemia at age 5.
“The immensity of our family’s grief cannot be overstated,” Christopher wrote. “As my mother, her support for me was unconditional — she taught me to embrace my dreams, reject conformity and challenge the dark voices of fear and self-doubt. As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions.”
