The Wolf Gift

By Anne Rice

(Knopf)

When Glen Duncan’s fabulously sinister and moving “The Last Werewolf” came out in July, it set an almost unreachably high bar for the lycanthrope subgenre, in much the same way Anne Rice’s 1976 classic “Interview With the Vampire” did for fang lit.

Now here comes Rice with her own take on the wolf-man legend, “The Wolf Gift,” a fast-paced, heady romp that ranks with her best. I still give “The Last Werewolf” the edge, by the teensiest smidgen, because of its operatic sense of tragedy and gravitas. But “Wolf Gift,” with its irresistible hero and sense of frolic, will set Rice’s fans panting and no doubt lure lots of new converts into her pack.

As in “Interview,” the action starts with a journalist who’s got his nose into a good story. Young Reuben Golding is investigating a legendarily mysterious, forested Northern California estate that’s about to go on the market. He falls fast and furious for both the house, which he almost immediately decides to buy for himself (he has income other than a typical journalist’s, it must be noted), and its owner, Marchent Nideck.

Marchent’s Uncle Felix, the previous owner, has finally been declared officially dead after his disappearance 20 years earlier. Reuben and Marchent’s brief but passionate tryst comes to a bloody end when intruders break in, kill Marchent and try to do the same to Reuben. He’s saved by a shrouded, barely seen creature and, while recuperating, notices that he’s suddenly glowing with health. Unnatural health, in fact, with thicker hair and a heightened sense of hearing.

“He could have sworn there was some sort of problem with the vents in this hospital, that he was hearing someone on a lower floor fighting off an attacker. Cars passing. He could hear them, too. Raised voices,” Rice writes. Reuben’s mother, a doctor, diagnoses his problems as “drug delusions” and calls for more tests.

When Reuben’s inevitable transformation occurs ― and not on a full moon; Rice gleefully messes with the genre’s long-held absolutes ― far from becoming a slobbering, cursed beast, he metamorphoses into a superhero in “man-wolf” form. He saves a woman from rape and an entire school bus of children from kidnapping, gaining a cult following complete with tribute songs and poems.

Being a journalist, he can’t help asking questions about how this happened and whether there are others like him. He finds clues in Marchent’s house, in the decades-old photos and relics of her uncle, and in an extensive survey of werewolf literature. Along the way, he falls in love with a forest-dwelling woman who seems curiously amenable to her lover’s forays into extreme furriness.

As with all of Rice’s work, the book reflects her personal philosophical struggles. She returned to the Catholic church years ago after a long estrangement, but in 2010 “quit Christianity” because, she said on her Facebook page, “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. ... I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.”

Rice puts her feelings ― and the book’s strong underlying theme ― succinctly into the mouth of one character: “All morality is of necessity shaped by context. I’m not talking relativism, no. To ignore the context of a decision is in fact immoral.”

“Wolf Gift” gets bogged down in its final third by lengthy discourses into origin theory and lycanthrope mythology. Until that point, though, it’s an energetic gambol, feisty and terrific fun. Fans will be glad to see that Rice leaves the story wide open for possible sequels. (MCT)