The Return Of Anne Rice’s “Beauty”

Word has been kicking around the internet that Anne Rice is working on a fourth “A.N. Roquelaure” novel, although as far as I can tell she hasn’t actually said (despite my post headline) that it will necessarily be a Beauty novel. News of the new erotic novel is great for fans who feared that Rice’s kinky side was gone for good when she found religion; and even though she renounced her Christianity back in 2010, she was sufficiently equivocal about doing so that nobody (I think) ever expected another kinky erotica novel out of her.

It turns out that she’s been talking about the new book on her FaceBook page since at least December 30, and she says she’s working on the book now. (I’d provide links, but of course FaceBook is broken-by-design where the rest of the internet is concerned.)

Here’s something interesting she said in a 2012 interview about her motives in writing the original Beauty trilogy:

I wrote it because I thought most pornography was 1) Victorian classics revived and repackaged or 2) hack work by people who didn’t share the fantasy. So I decided to write the pornography I wanted to read, to prove that good S&M porn could be done without murder, burning, cutting or any kind of real physical harm; that a delicious pornography of detailed S&M games — dominance and submission, humiliation and love — could be made, all of it with elegance, refinement, and some romance. I created a fairytale kingdom of luxurious chambers, gorgeous costumes, and handsome and beautiful royal slaves, a world filled with romance, some intrigue and a lot of detail as to sexuality. I wanted it to be fun.

My interest in pornography started early. I came of age in the sixties when there was more interest. At that time Grove Press re-issued many Victorian porno works, including Victorian S&M materials, and they also took the world by storm by publishing The Story of O, a new work from France.

When The Story of O came out in the sixties that was an underground event. I loved it. But I found it grim. I wanted with my pornography to write something that was not grim, some playful fantasy in which the “slaves” were presumably enhanced by their “service” and admitted they enjoyed it, where the relationships between the dominated and the dominating were fluid. I think I achieved it with the Trilogy. I don’t think anyone sees it as grim. That was one very strong impulse. I was dissatisfied with all I read; I was striving for a more comfortable, flexible, durable fantasy.

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