Review: ‘The Wolf Gift’ by Anne Rice

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Updated: March 27, 2012 8:09AM

Vampires, witches, demons, angels, Jesus and dybbuks — with The Wolf Gift, Anne Rice adds lycanthropes to her bucket list of characters.

Rice has never shied away from tackling Big Issues: After two books of a projected trilogy on “Christ the Lord,” her last two novels featured an assassin grappling with redemption. The Wolf Gift marks a return to form while still giving a nod to spiritual matters. This is a werewolf novel in which the visionary Jesuit theologian Teilhard de Chardin is evoked so often that he nearly becomes a secondary character.

San Francisco journalist Reuben Golding could use some bite when he first visits the magnificent cliff-top Nideck estate, nestled in a redwood forest four hours north of the Bay Area. At 23, sweet-natured Reuben has agreed to do a puff piece on the mansion, put up for sale by Marchent Nideck, who inherited the compound from her Uncle Felix, an adventurer whose will has only recently been opened after his mysterious disappearance two decades earlier.

It doesn’t take more than a few pages for Reuben to fall for both Marchent and the Nideck estate. Rice’s descriptions of the mansion are so lush that readers might do the same — to cop a line from musical theater, this is a book that will leave readers humming the architecture.

Post-tryst, Reuben drifts off to sleep, only to be awakened by Marchent’s screams. Rushing downstairs, he finds Marchent dead and he is attacked by two assailants who are abruptly dispatched by a ferocious dog that appears out of nowhere, sinks its fangs into Reuben’s face and disappears.

Reuben rebounds miraculously, aided by the news that Marchent made a last-minute change to her will and left the estate to him. There are some peculiar side effects to his recovery, though, such as acutely enhanced senses of hearing and smell: “It was as if each fragrance had a personality, a distinct color in his mind. He felt like he was reading a code.”

Blood tests indicate a rapid surge of growth hormone. And his hair — let’s just say Fabio should watch his back.

All of this starts out as good, pulpy fun, with Rice’s violet-tinged prose making for a delectable cocktail of old-fashioned lost-race adventure, shape-shifting and suspense, brightened by enticing hints of a secret history dating back to ancient Sumeria. Unfortunately, Rice dilutes the mix by introducing an insipid romantic interest for Reuben, who’s really a noble collie beneath all that lupine hair.

There is no true antagonist, no moody Lucifer or conflicted Lestat; only an array of one-dimensional baddies who are no match for a Man Wolf whose wounds magically heal themselves overnight. Rice seems to have forgotten that readers don’t want werewolves with good taste; they want werewolves who think humans taste good.

Still, it’s good to see her back with a character who isn’t from the New Testament.

Washington Post