"The Vampire Lestat" Challenge Quiz

Answer: 6 feet

Lestat tells us, "I'm six feet tall, which was fairly impressive in the 1780's when I was a young mortal man. It's not bad now." (Paperback edition, p. 3)

Answer: 55 years

Lestat "went literally and figuratively underground" in New Orleans in 1929. He resurfaced in 1984 to join the rock band, 'Satan's Night Out', which rehearsed in an attic near his resting place. (Paperback edition, pgs. 4-5)

Answer: Bach's "Art of the Fugue"

Lestat also mentions listening to Bach's "Goldberg Variations", but never refers to these other works in his tale. (Paperback edition, p. 6)

Answer: Auvergne

Lestat's father was the Marquis, and his land was in the Auvergne. Although Lestat never mentions the name of his village, he does tell us, "And I'm thinking of the old saying in France in those days, that if you lived in the province of Auvergne you could get no further from Paris." The Auvergne is in south central France, in the Massif Central area. (Paperback edition, p. 24)

Answer: his fear of nothingness after death

While drinking in the village inn with Nicolas, Lestat comes to the conclusion that, "we don't make any discovery at that moment! We merely stop! We pass into non existence without ever knowing a thing." This belief, along the impending death of his beloved mother, terrified him so much that he often fell to trembling at the thought of it. (Paperback edition, pgs. 55 & 66)

Answer: that he scatter his ashes

Magnus, mad at the time of Lestat's creation, told Lestat very little before he went into the fire, but he did insist upon this one thing. "Hear me, little one. Scatter the ashes. Or else I might return, and in what shape that would be, I dare not contemplate.

But mark my words, if you allow me to come back, more hideous than I am now, I shall hunt you down and burn you till you are scarred the same as I, do you hear me?" (Paperback edition, p. 95)

Answer: Magnus' coachman

The vampires of les Innocents killed the stable boy, and Lestat killed the others. But his first human victim was Magnus' old servant. "An old, withered man he was, and by some indefinable tangle of considerations in his mind, I knew he was a stable master and a coachman." (Paperback edition, pgs. 110-111)

Answer: consumption

Gabrielle suffered from "consumption", known today as tuberculosis. (Paperback edition, p. 119)

Answer: Nicolas

Lestat was referring to Nicolas, when the Children of Darkness kidnapped and held him beneath les Innocents. Surrounded by the vampires of the coven, Nicolas appeared startlingly human in contrast. (Paperback edition, p. 221)

Answer: a bird

"I saw a bird soaring out of a cave above the open sea. And there was something terrifying about the bird and the endless waves over which it flew." In contrast with the visions he saw of Gabrielle's life when he made her a vampire, the vision Lestat received from Nicolas was extremely bleak - a lone bird flying over a barren wasteland. (Paperback edition, p. 238)

Answer: the mad "queen creature"

The unnamed, mad "queen creature" of the coven beneath les Innocents said this when Lestat and Gabrielle were captured by the Children of Darkness. Later, when Lestat goes "underground" beneath his house in New Orleans during the 20th century he dreams that Akasha repeats these words to him. And here's some bonus trivia - we learn in a later book, "The Vampire Armand", that the queen creature's name was Allesandra. (Paperback edition, p. 220)

Answer: Nicolas

"Well, speak. Don't you see the splendid mockery, the genius?" He struck his own chest with his fist. "They'll come to our performances, fill our coffers with gold, and never guess what they harbor, what flourishes right in the corner of the Parisian eye. In the back alleys we feed on them and they clap for us before the lighted stage..." (Paperback edition, pgs. 262-263)

Answer: The Elder

Armand never mentioned The Elder, because he did not know of him at that time. The Elder was a part of the history that Marius related to Lestat later. But Armand did mention Pandora, Mael, and Santino in his tale. (Paperback edition, p. 304)

Answer: 1780

We learn the year of their departure from Paris when Lestat carves a message to Marius on the ruins of an old inn: "Marius, the Ancient One: Lestat is searching for you. It is the month of May, in the year 1780 and I go south from Paris towards Lyons. Please make yourself known to me." (Paperback edition, p. 320)

Answer: Cairo

Lestat went "underground" for the first time in Cairo, after Gabrielle left him to explore the jungles of Africa. Marius found him there, in the garden of a burnt-out house, and gave Lestat his restorative blood. (Paperback edition, pgs. 348 & 363)

Answer: 40

"It happened in my fortieth year, on a warm spring night in the Roman Gallic city of Massilia, when in a dirty waterfront tavern I sat scribbling away on my history of the world." (Paperback edition, p. 396)

Answer: November 1

Marius was transformed by the old god of the grove during the feast of Samhain, which occurs on November 1st in our modern calendar. (Paperback edition, p. 407)

Answer: he was afraid Marius would condemn him for his mistakes

"Yet not once in all this time did I call out to Marius, did I try to reach him over the miles. I could not beg for his healing blood. Better suffer purgatory for a century than Marius's condemnation. Better suffer the worst loneliness, the worst anguish, than discover that he knew everything I'd done and had long ago turned his back on me." (Paperback edition, p. 502)

Answer: 2 years

Lestat was so damaged by the fall from the tower that it took two years for him to heal enough to board the ship for New Orleans. OUCH! (Paperback edition, p. 508)

Answer: Akasha

In what is the most startling and suspenseful cliffhanger I have ever encountered in a book, Lestat receives at dawn a telepathic message from Marius indicating that Akasha was the one who burnt Lestat's enemies. Too late to do anything but sleep, Lestat retreats to his hillside crypt as the sun begins to rise, only to feel a cold hand clasp his and soft hair brush across his face. (Paperback edition, pgs. 549-550) Well, thank heavens for sequels!