Stepping into the French Quarter in New Orleans for the first time, I could already sense its rich history. With my grandparents being from New Orleans, I can only imagine the times they lived through in this city. They grew up post Plessy v. Ferguson and lived in the heart of where the beginning of racial desegregation in public schools took place.

Diversity and the acceptance of various thinking and religions are so apparent in a place like New Orleans. I could tell by the Voodoo shops down the street from St. Louis Cathedral with a plethora of palmistry and fortune tellers on every other street corner.

So when I thought about why Anne Rice chose to set her novel, Interview with The Vampire, here in New Orleans, it made perfect sense to choose the mystical south. It’s where the supernatural could thrive in the dark alleys and edges of the city. They could blend in with the fans, like myself, that go on Vampire Tours as well as the actual vampires that participate in consensual blood drinking... So it’s a melting pot of culture to say the least.

In doing my own research about the mystical south, I went bookpacking around the city. Naturally, I visited several bookstores to investigate their feelings on why the south has earned its mystic reputation (as well as their favorite parts of the book!). I found it so fitting that Peter was working there that day because he is always so upbeat and the best source of information about anything New Orleans when we stop in. In an “Interview With Peter (The Bookseller)” from Faulkner’s Books, he speaks on this question about why the mystic south earned its name in relation to the book. Peter immediately refers to the “diversity of New Orleans” and how it’s been in place “since it was founded in 1718”.

Additionally, in speaking with Peter from Faulkner Books, it always seems like there is a hint of belief in the supernatural or supernatural occurrences. It’s a common theme in the workers I spoke to and we learned the extent in which it’s practiced at the Voodoo museum. Even if the people I spoke to had their own religious beliefs, they never completely wrote off the possibility of the supernatural existing in the mystic south. I think this is what Louis, the vampire in our novel, was referring to when he says New Orleans is “a magical and magnificent place to live”. He says “a vampire, richly dressed and gracefully walking through the pools of light of one gas lamp after another might attract no more notice in the evening than hundreds of other exotic creatures- if he attracted any at all”. The fact that he can walk as his true self in the evening and blend in with “hundreds of other exotic creatures” perpetuates the idea that New Orleans serves as a part of the mystical south that accepts different thought and walks of life.

I was always curious about how New Orleans reached this mystical south status, especially from a person of color’s perspective. After visiting the NOLA African-American History Museum, I watched a PBS documentary detailing the history of black New Orleans. The narrator spoke of how the Tribune was America’s first black daily newspaper that spoke on social justice. A majority black city had a majority black local government and had somewhat of a voice before Jim Crow laws. Trailing further back in history, we spoke in seminars on how enslaved people in New Orleans were able to speak in their native tongue and practice their religion, unlike most areas in the south. A passage in the novel that offers a glimpse into the black experience during this time period is when Louis describes New Orleans as not only having ”black slaves, yet unhomogenized and fantastical in their different tribal garb and manners, but the great growing class of the free people of color, those marvelous people of our mixed blood and that of the islands, who produced a magnificent and unique caste of craftsmen, artists, poets, and renowned feminine beauty”.

Reading a novel about a vampire who owned a plantation with enslaved people, it was interesting to see certain snippets of African-American culture come through. Noting each interaction an enslaved person had with our main character, Louis, I noticed Louis’ shift in perspective on people of color in relation to his mortal versus immortal life. I also found it quite ironic how he considered himself a slave to his creator, considering his vampiric nature and the fact he makes money off of his enslaved people. This premise makes it even more understandable why the mystical south is essential to Louis’ continuation of existence. He uses the mystic of the south to blend in while quite literally surviving off of his enslaved people.

Unlike the stories I read of enslaved people being unable to speak in their native tongue in the deep south, New Orleans served as a bit of an exception in some instances. It let snippets of black culture seep through the cracks of enslavement. Louis describes this difference as enslaved people “not yet destroyed as Africans completely” like they had been in other locations.

Louis’ perspective and clarity shifts once he becomes immortal. He starts to see Lestat as “radiant, not luminous. And then I saw that not only Lestat had changed, but all things had changed. It was as if I had only just been able to see colors and shapes for the first time.” With “all things” changing, his perspective and misconceptions on people of color begin to shift as well. In his human life, enslaved people were “very black and totally foreign” singing “exotic and strange” songs. He admits that he “failed to realize that their experience with the supernatural was far greater than that of white men. In my own inexperience I still thought of them as childlike savages barely domesticated by slavery.” He is shocked by the knowledge that people of color already knew of a realm he just entered. He even admits to his “inexperience” and immaturity in thinking that enslaved people were lesser than. This awakening post mortality is further shown when he realizes that they would have been the best option for a job he overlooked them on. He acknowledges that he “had several extremely intelligent slaves who might have done his job just as well a long time before, if I had I recognized their intelligence and not feared their African appearance and manner. I studied them clearly now and gave the management of things over to them”. During his former years as a human he “feared” the people of color that worked for him prohibiting him from seeing their intelligence. In his new life as a vampire he’s able to see them “clearly now” and shift his prejudice. I find it interesting that in his life as a vampire when he is removed from fear and all human blood is the same to him, his language and prejudice around enslaved people changes.

Furthermore, various times throughout the novel Louis refers to himself as a slave to Lestat, his vampire creator. He feels that he was created just to serve Lestat and is caught having too much human emotion for his past life of when he was free from Lestat. I found his predicament extremely ironic as he is the owner of enslaved people on an indigo plantation. His term of slave is far from the struggles of the enslaved people on his plantation. Much of his plight is ridding himself of Lestat who only allows him to climb so high and threatens to endanger his newfound vampire family member, Claudia, if he threatens to leave. What he does onto enslaved people is a parallel to this, but much worse. It is overlooked which is why it is hard to muster compassion toward his mission to remove himself from being a "slave".

Louis’ challenge later becomes Claudia’s mission to solve. She tells him that Lestat’s creator “made a slave of him, and he would no more be a slave than I would be a slave, and so he killed him. Killed him before he knew what he might know, and then in panic made a slave of you. And you’ve been his slave… mindless accomplice…no slave…and i shall free us both”. The dire need to kill in order to free themselves was hard to connect to as they were still living a life of privilege doing as they please. I wasn’t sure what lifestyle Claudia wanted to “free” them from, but there was great irony in their pursuit of justice while stifling others.

In addition, Louis reveals that “the plantations had a great deal to do with it, really, my becoming a vampire”. This lifestyle of privilege he lives on the plantation is what sustains and shelters him. His property is separated enough to maintain mystery and the evenings in the mystic south don’t draw him extra attention. His life on the plantation is the perfect setting for a vampire. And he is using his enslaved people for profit while feeling he is a slave as well. But even when he says he has regard for human life, he chooses human blood over animal blood. He also never gives up ownership of his plantation which is where I find the greatest irony because he believes himself to be Lestat’s slave still.

Lastly, learning about the mystical south and how it relates to the perfect environment for vampires is so interconnected in the history, diversity, and mystery that is alive and well in New Orleans.