SYMPATHY FOR THE NOVELIST | PAGE 2 OF 2 "Big expert on hell are you?" Rice suddenly sneered as if she were reading my mind. "You know nothing about the deal I made with Memnoch." Uh oh. The Devil. That was why she was here. In my essay, I speculated on her deal with the Devil, a deal that lies at the heart of any writer's privacy. Imagine Cynthia Ozick's embarrassment when the president of Barnes & Noble made her meager sales figures public at a conference on American publishing, a revelation that wound up being published in the New York Times. Rice's embarrassment about Satan would be 10 times worse. Although I must say that most of my speculation came from the printed utterances of Rice's Boswell, Katherine Ramsland, author of "Prism of the Night: A Biography of Anne Rice." That book tells how Rice's 5-year-old daughter Michele died of cancer in 1972, an unbearable loss that sent the author and her husband, Stan, on a year-long Lost Weekend binge. Then Rice wrote "Interview," a novel concerning a 5-year-old vampire named Claudia. What mother could have written such a thing? Before we judge, know that Claudia lived "happily ever after" in Paris in the first draft of the book, but Rice killed her surrogate vampire daughter off with the Parisian morning sun in the final edit. "Claudia had really been meant to die ... the way Michele had died," Rice told the New York Times. "If somebody is meant to die and you don't do it, you're really risking your well-being at the end of the book." But Rice still felt rocky after publication. She now claims that "Interview" wasn't an immediate success. She spent the next decade writing two "serious" novels (one about an amorous pair of castrati) as well as a handful of bondage novels under two pseudonyms. None of these raked in big bucks. Rice was that hapless creature, a "midlist writer," a very literate woman stuck in the dog end of publishing. A woman who publicly raved about her love for Eudora Welty. Her debt to Virginia Woolf. After 10 years, she said, "To Hell with 'serious' lit!" And she wrote a vampire sequel. But -- just before "Lestat" was published -- the Devil appeared. Who cares how I know this. I live in New York City, after all, and I have my sources. In 1985, Rice was in town to visit her editor at Knopf when her elevator stopped between floors and Satan (who has always hated the name "Memnoch") appeared. "I offer you literary fame greater than Stephen King's," he whispered. Then he mentioned sales figures. Pre-publication bonuses. Foreign rights deals. Etc. "And if I accept, I'll lose my soul?" Rice asked. Satan laughed. "No no no. Nothing so crude." "What's the drawback?" The Devil smiled -- a sad smile actually -- as he said, "You have to hear my second offer." And Rice thought a minute, and asked, "Are you Catholic?" The Devil looked surprised, then smiled without answering. "Every good Catholic knows you never listen to the Devil's second offer," she said, and started pushing elevator buttons. Suddenly, the elevator jerked and the lights went out for a moment. When they came back on, the Devil was gone and Rice stepped out into the lobby. It didn't immediately dawn on the woman that by refusing the Devil's second offer, she had accepted his first by default. When "Lestat" became a bestseller, she didn't think the Devil had anything to do with it. Then, in '87, she saw the final "Star Wars" flick and became so enraptured by Lucas-style mythos that in a white heat she wrote the first draft of "Queen of the Damned." It was an unwieldy comic-book tale. But it was only a first draft. She planned to spend months polishing it. Then out of the blue Rice got a call from Knopf. They were thrilled to death with her new book. "But it's not done," she said, searching the desk for the manuscript. Then a hot hand pressed hers and made her hang up the phone. "I FedExed the manuscript yesterday," the Devil told her. "It's going to be a bestseller, why kill yourself?" Why indeed. And year after year this is how Rice has proceeded. Why spend more than a month or two writing a book that's assured to hit the charts? For the glory of literature? Ha! Rice remains the only major American writer brave enough to confront the Eastern literary establishment. She asserts in almost retro-Marxist-style that industrialization has so beaten America's alleged "literati" that the poor sods believe that it's unrealistic to attempt anything great in life, thus the only stories worth telling concern the divorce of a "normal couple in Connecticut" and "their quarrel over the custody of the children, and how they both work it out, each in her or his own way." Ha! Even at her worst, Rice never inflicted Connecticut on us. In her most "domestic" novel, "Lasher," a witch betrays her husband with a ghost who attaches himself to her fetus and is quickly born with a man's head and baby's body. The baby/man soon mounts and impregnates his lover/mother so a daughter will be born who he can incestuously mate with to further the race of super creatures known as Taltos. As Rice's witches and ghosts continue to work it out, "each in her or his own way," the author remains beloved by her readership. In Jana Marcus' just-published, "In the Shadow of the Vampire: Reflections from the World of Anne Rice," she portrays Rice's most fervent fans, such as "Madame Elisandrya," who currently has "seven slaves: three males and four female, but that number changes depending on my mood and their wig color." Elisandrya loves "romance, the gothic period, the S&M world, and vampirism," and "naturally" adores Rice's novels. As amusing as such a reader is, what writer would kill herself writing perfect sentences to please Madame Elisandrya? Although, after 10 years of satisfying Elisandrya's whimsy, Rice managed to write "Memnoch" in 1995 and address God's responsibility for her situation with the Devil. "A situation you've confronted again in your latest novel, 'Violin,'" I told her. "It's almost pure autobiography, isn't it? Your protagonist, Triana, once played violin as a child, just like you. Had an alcoholic mother, just like you. Lost a daughter to cancer. Then had dealings with a demon and became an overnight cult star." Rice responded by slapping me, her cowl flaring open. And I saw. Rice was pregnant. "The Devil finally made me his second offer," she said. I thought of her fictional ghosts piggy-backing fetuses and I blanched. "Are you going to give birth to Satan?" I asked, surprised that I was trembling. "What a horrendous thought," she spat out. "Oh my, no. No no no. I'm going to save American literature." "How?" "You care about American literature, don't you?" she asked. "Maybe I won't destroy you after all." Then she touched her belly. "Eudora is inside," she said slyly. "Virginia too. They're waiting to be born. Fully grown. And ready to write. Then it will be 'Farewell CONNECTICUT DIVORCE fiction forever!'" "But what about your own books?" I asked. "You've proved you can be brilliant when you want. Why don't you take a year or two and write a real book?" "Ha!" she laughed. And answered me before swirling up into herself and disappearing. Answered me with this rhetorical question: "How can I write a so-called 'real book' when I have Madame Elisandrya to keep satisfied?" I had, and still have, no answer to give her. But before Rice disappeared, she left something behind. A card with a phone number on it. The Devil's. "You're a writer," she scribbled on the back. "Think you're strong enough to not give him a call?" I don't know. I've been up for days. I have this number. Anne Rice gave me this number that I think I have to call. Or maybe I'll just send it to John Updike. SALON | Oct. 31, 1997  Joe Fowst is the pseudonym of a midlist novelist living in New York City. Are you a fan of Anne Rice? Check out her online diary in Salon.