Fifty Years of Fangs, Leigh Bardugo and Christopher Rice Celebrate Interview With the Vampire

Union Station already looks like a place where a vampire might wait for the last train. This weekend it gets the literature to match. Rare Books LA fills the station’s Ticket Concourse on Saturday, October 3 and Sunday, October 4, and this year the fair celebrates the 50th anniversary of Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire.

A special exhibit of vampire memorabilia will be on view. The highlights include an 1819 copy of The Vampyre by John William Polidori, a first edition of Interview With the Vampire and Rice’s own black Chinese wedding dress, according to Fine Books and Collections. More than 50 exhibitors from London, New York and beyond will bring first editions, maps, fine prints and book arts.

The family voice of the weekend belongs to Christopher Rice, the author’s son. On Saturday from noon to 1 p.m. he and fellow author Eric Shaw Quinn lead Immortal, The Legacy of Anne Rice, a conversation about her lasting influence. The talk is free with paid admission to the fair.

On Monday, October 5 at 7 p.m., the celebration moves to Pasadena Presbyterian Church, where Vroman’s Bookstore hosts Leigh Bardugo with Rice and Quinn for a discussion and signing. Bardugo wrote the foreword to a new 50th anniversary edition from Knopf, and Christopher Rice wrote its afterword. The hardcover arrives October 6 at $50. At the fair, NBC Los Angeles reports, that edition is bundled with a fundraiser ticket benefiting the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.

Rice was born in New Orleans in 1941, and her first novel became the 1994 film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. The anniversary tour continues to New York Comic Con and the Strand, with a stop in New Orleans on Halloween.

The fair runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday at 800 North Alameda Street. Organizers encourage visitors to arrive by Metro, Metrolink or Amtrak.