The Witching Hour

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice was originally published in 1990. Rice draws upon her own experiences living in New Orleans and San Francisco to bring these locations to life in the novel. The Witching Hour combines elements of gothic romance, fantasy, and horror. It won the Locus Award for best horror/dark fantasy novel in 1991, and Rice won the Bram Stoker Award for her lifetime achievements in 2004. The Witching Hour was adapted as The Mayfair Witches as part of the Immortal Universe, in 2023 on AMC.

This guide cites the Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition published in 1993.

Content Warning: The source material includes sexual assault, self-harm, incest, pedophilia, forced pregnancy, medical abuse, homicide, alcohol abuse, antisemitism, and explicitly racist language about Black people in the Caribbean and the United States.

Plot Summary

The Witching Hour follows the Mayfair family of witches up to the life of the current and most powerful witch, Rowan. In ancient Scotland, the witch Suzanne Mayfair summoned an entity known as Lasher, binding herself and her descendants to his power. Suzanne was executed by witch hunters for her actions, but her daughter, Deborah, escaped. She had a child with Petyr van Abel, a member of the Talamasca—an order of watchers who research the occult. With Lasher’s help, Deborah’s descendants grew in power and wealth, always staying ahead of revolutions and tribulations that would have destroyed them and their fortune. Lasher encouraged the descendants to commit incest, which he promised would result in more powerful witches. Lasher, an incorporeal being, planned to engineer a witch powerful enough to make him a physical body.

The Mayfairs escaped the Haitian revolution, retaining their wealth and slaves. In America, they grew even more powerful, where they took over a plantation called Riverbend, built a house in New Orleans, and cultivated their fortune to its current size of approximately seven billion dollars, as of the start of the novel. However, the 12th generation witch, the last before the prophesied 13th generation who would be able to free Lasher, was orphaned as a baby and fell under the control of Carlotta, an elder Mayfair who wanted to stop Lasher. Carlotta drugged Deirdre, the 12th generation witch, and when Deirdre was impregnated, Carlotta sent the baby away to be adopted. The baby is Rowan Mayfair, the novel’s protagonist.

The novel begins with the deaths of Rowan’s adoptive parents, Ellie Mayfair and Graham Franklin. Carlotta tries to contact them regarding Rowan’s inheritance after Deirdre’s death. She has to give Rowan the entire Mayfair legacy, as well as the spirit Lasher. Lasher appears to Rowan and follows her throughout the novel. Aaron Lightner, another agent of an organization called the Talamasca, studied Lasher for decades. When Michael Curry drowns and is resuscitated by Rowan Mayfair, he gains psychic powers, and he and Rowan fall in love. At the beginning of their romance, Aaron provides Michael with the extensive files on the Mayfair’s history and invites him to join the Talamasca. Michael travels to New Orleans to investigate.

Rowan travels to New Orleans to attend her biological mother’s funeral and meets the sprawling Mayfair family. Carlotta shows her the Mayfair house on First Street and confesses to some of the cruel and unusual murders she participated in there. Rowan uses her powerful magic to kill Carlotta with her mind before Michael arrives at the Mayfair House. Rowan and Michael plan to get married, and Michael shows Rowan the file. She promises to not have sex with Lasher.

After Michael and Rowan are married and Rowan becomes pregnant with his child, Rowan has sex with Lasher and then lies to Michael, who travels to San Francisco to clean up and sell his house and business there. When Mayfair ghosts contact Michael and inform him of Rowan’s betrayal, he returns to New Orleans to confront her, but Rowan drugs him and escapes. Lasher possesses Rowan’s unborn child, causing the child to develop impossibly fast. Rowan gives birth and uses her magic to save the Lasher-infant from its fatal mutations. The baby grows up almost instantly into a tall, thin man, resembling Lasher’s spirit form. Michael confronts Lasher and nearly drowns for a second time in the pool; he survives because Rowan alerts the authorities.

Rowan and Lasher flee, while Michael thinks about the nature of free will and Rowan’s betrayal. He stays in the house on First Street, believing Rowan will return to him.