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On a long winter night in February 1973, an old vampire sat down with a young reporter and told him the story of his life. The reporter, Daniel Molloy, published the story he had recorded as a novel in May 1976 under the feminine Nom de Plume 'Anne Rice'. That novel, Interview with the Vampire, became the cause of a rather long and complicated chain of events, including the publication of many more novels that are actually covert histories of those events and the biographies of the vampires involved: these are the Vampire Chronicles.

That's the way it happened in the VC universe, anyway. Here IRL a writer who had chosen the name Anne over her masculine birth name Howard Allen, and adopted Stan Rice's surname when she married him, wrote it all: returning to the characters repeatedly over a 40 year span and creating a 15 volume series. The last book was published in 2018, 3 years before she died.

One year ago today, 11 December 2021, at age 80, after a long and eventful life, Anne Rice died.

As we all will eventually.

Except Daniel Molloy. The boy who had an idea called 'Anne Rice' lives forever.

That part of Rice's mind from which our vamps sprang is as immortal as they are, and Daniel is a uniquely loaded construction: an inverted wink to the author's in-universe representative conceit, our mortal window on the vampire's world, audience representative, and still a fully dimensional character, all at once. And with Daniel, Anne Rice gave every single one of us who fell in love with her vampires and wanted to join them belonging in VampChron, she made him immortal for us.

In the days after Anne's death a fan put forward an idea.

I can't think of a more perfect, wonderful thing. I support it without reservation, and will celebrate it with joy and with tears.

Of course, many a Daniel fan already had a Bday picked out for him. During her life Anne assigned Louis her birthdate- 4 October, even though she'd made it textually impossible for his birthdate to fall in autumn. 4 October is literally god's against-text headcanon. No reason in the world we can't keep our personal headcanons while also celebrating community with concepts shared by our collective fandom.

Daniel is unique in VC for having a paradoxical dark gift date: he was born to darkness in the long midnight of an airplane headed west: Midnight 30/31 October 1985. Both 30th or 31st is perfectly correct, and what truly matters is comprehending the implications to the story: that the mundane magic of jet speed travel and timezones means that the clock struck 12 thrice on that transformative journey: once in every time zone they flew through, and that although Armand & Daniel took off in that plane around 10.30pm cst (it was after 9pm when Armand found Daniel downtown ("a clock had struck the hour of nine" TQOTD p94) and drive time Chicago to O'Hare airport 38 minutes, plus 30 minutes to get boarded) and disembarked around 1.00am pst, 4.5 full hours (flight time from Chicago O'Hare to SFO) passed for them while in the air, leading to the perception that the hour during which Daniel was transformed never existed for anyone but the two of them and the pilots flying their plane. Much like synchronicity, this perspective based paradox envokes a pleasurable feeling of the numinous.

VampChron has a reputation for inviting the reader to think about things in more than one way, from more than one POV, and to embrace contradiction. A contradiction can often be resolved by finding the scenario in which all evidence is equally true. But sometimes, like with Daniel's midnight hour dark gift date, letting two irreconcilable things stand as equally true doesn't introduce confusion, rather adding satisfyingly rich layers of meaning.

VC also has a rep for both idiosyncrasies and uncanny synchronicities- no few of them involving Daniel Molloy. Half of the reason he's called Daniel is that it phonetically contains Anne's name, a trick she used again in Violin with the narrator Triana. That Daniel has more than one dark gift day in canon lends the Anne/Daniel mirror an uncanny sense that half of a whole was waiting through the fullness of time for the synchronicity of her death date to become complete. And certainly that December 1952 is supportable with long recognised canonical subtext gives a pleasurably numinus feel of fulfilled predestination to fanon assignment of Anne's death date as Daniel's birthdate.

This essay explores the canonical evidence that Daniel was born in December 1952, and that in-universe, the date was the 2nd. Synchronicity herself has shown us the IRL date must be the 11th. Very fitting for Daniel Mulloy, 11 December should join the ranks of idiosyncrasies & in-jokes in VampChron.

***

Daniel is not named in IWTV. He is described as a young reporter, and referred to only as "The boy". His story is later given in The Devil's Minion chapter of The Queen of the Damned.

The day that frames TDM is Wednesday 30 October 1985, the day before Lestat's "Halloween" (TVL p467, TQOTD p11 & "All Hallow's Eve" p179) ”1985” (TVL p450) concert. At that time Daniel "was thirty-two" (TQOTD p67), pinpointing his birth at some point between November 1952 and September 1953. He had interviewed Louis “over twelve years ago” (TQOTD p68), so in 1973, before October, and specified to have been in wintertime "They had begun at dark, which had come early on this San Francisco winter night” (IWTV p94). We are given the in-universe publication year for Daniel's 'Anne Rice pseudonym IWTV' (“published in 1976” TQOTD p11). 4 May is the IRL publication date for the novel, and the foundational conceit of VC is that it takes place in the real world; necessitating books in the series were released on the same date in-universe.

Rice's only constraints in building Daniel were that he must have been young when the interview occurred, and that it must have occurred before 1984, when Lestat read IWTV in universe. Rice chose his dates for Daniel, just as dates are chosen for any character in a real world setting, to give readers understanding of the character and their experience based on the context in which they exist.

Anne used context to uniquely load Daniel's character. By letting his context communicate the subtexts that underpin his plot, she firmly inverted the tragic tropes of the era and boldly maintexted a delightful fantasy demon lover romance starring two fully dimensional unapologetically queer characters, complete with happy ending amplified to a gothic +10. It can never be emphasized enough how this was absolutley unique at the time, and beloved as a gift of tremendous affirmation by the 80's audience she wrote it for. Once again we are returned to the 1st rule of VampChron: read between the lines.

When Daniel was born in the 1950's, american children generally started public education with 1st grade at age 6. Only children of age by the time the school year started in September began that year, so in specifying Daniel's birthdate as occurring between November 1952 and September 1953, Rice placed him firmly in the High School graduating class of 1971.

Why would she do that? The High School class of '71 had the unique experience of being divided- into the lucky, and the not- by the defining event of their entire generation: the Viet Nam draft. In a positively gothic turn of events, half of the class of '71- those with October, November & December 1952 birthdays, ended up being the last boys ever conscripted into the Viet nam war. Their January-September 1953 born classmates on the other hand, had the fortune to simply sigh in relief and get on with life as conscription abruptly ended before they became eligible.

The cold war & Viet Nam is the context of youth for American boys born 1940 -1956: fearing the bomb, vulnerable to the draft. When the same cohort were adults in the 1980's, they were confronted by the Aids crisis. It seems distant history now, but in 1988 when TQOTD was being read by every 30 & 20something in america, all their mothers, and their little brothers, too, those 1952 guys were only 35 years old. This was current events and recent history to Anne's readers then.

The 1952 birth cohort had the longest, worst rollercoaster of all the boomer boys. Being last to be conscripted after years and years of the Viet Nam draft meant they were the ones youngest when such terrifying uncertainty was imposed, and deepest marked by their fears actually coming true- the last of them were conscripted 7 December 1972.

Daniel's textual themes of being stalked by death and luck in escaping threats that killed his peers by the skin of his teeth are supported and reinforced if one infers the late 1952 birthdate for him, thus logically it was Rice's intention.

Intentionally, Daniel Molloy was born in the end of Autumn 1952. This is based on 25 November & 2 December 1952 having been assigned the Viet nam draft lottery numbers 097 and 099 respectively: numbers so low Daniel expected he would certainly be inducted, but high enough that in the event he was not (95 ended up being the highest number inducted from 1952 birthdays).

Viet Nam had been a low key conflict until summer 1965, the summer after Daniel completed 6th grade, when LBJ steeply raised the draft call to 35,000 men each month & the major ground offensive began. The draft suddenly went from something with impact on a small group of american men in their 20's to forcing large numbers into frontline combat against their will as government progressively drafted more and more men and disallowed more and more kinds of deferments.

As a young teen in 7th & 8th grade, the 1966 & '67 media coverage of the civil rights struggle & the bloodbath war was nonstop as Daniel & his cohort were becoming conscious of the larger world.

The college student deferment system was completely unavailable to the working class; A wealthy family wasn't required to send you to college, but it did require the stability or prosperity to have saved a kid up a college fund or had one bequeathed by a relative.

Those conscripted to Viet Nam early on, at the discretion of local draft boards, were almost all working class and disproportionately black and brown. The public was against this injustice; the reform was the draft lottery. But government did two things along with it: they kept the policy of student deferments, and they reversed policy from preferring men in their 20's to taking the 19 year olds FIRST. It was calculated politics to turn the public entirely against compulsory service so as to make impossible the alternative reform of instituting universal service- that reform would have removed privilege held by the upper classes.

This was all implemented by the 1969 draft lottery that affected all men who had not already served born 1944-1950, and taken together meant that new draftees were not just almost entirely working class and disproportionately black and brown, they were now just teenagers- boys to young to legally get a beer in a bar being used as cannon fodder.

On 15 October 1969, ahead of the planned December draft lottery draw the largest peace protest in american history was staged by antiwar activists & vast numbers of the moderate middle class.

Daniel was in 11th grade when the December 1969 lottery draw occured. The 1949 & 1950 birthdays having numbers drawn that day were the boys he'd known as the juniors and seniors from the time he was a freshman. Then 7 months later, the July 1970 lottery drew from the 1951 boys who had been sophomores. *Every Last Boy* who Daniel had looked up to in high school was affected by that 'take the 19 year olds first' policy. It must have felt like a relentless march toward russian roulette with a meat grinder.

But for the lucky there was still a way to defer service. Middle class boys who had been drawn their draft numbers in '69 & '70 went to college and hoped the war would end before they finished, just like all the older boomer boys had done.

They also protested the war, with strikes as well as demonstrations. The emoromous high school and college student strike was met with violent repression, the most extreme when 4 students were shot dead and 9 others wounded by National Guard soilders at Ohio's Kent State on 4 May 1970.

As for Daniel, when he started his High School senior year in September 1970, the college student deferment path into the future was open. But by the spring of 1971 government was moving to phase out student deferments.

With a 2 December 1952 birthday Daniel would've turned 18 five months before finishing 12th grade. No doubt when Daniel graduated in May '71, he was praying the government wouldn't get their bill passed before he managed to get enrolled at his college. That summer though, it became apparent that the bill would pass and that all student deferments had been disallowed for college students who had not been enrolled the prior year.

Daniel's hopes were busted down to getting a high number. Gods know how many friends and acquaintances he had seen drawn a low one- and it was them now coming home in coffins on the 6 o'clock news.

With a 2 December 1952 birthday Daniel would have been part of the August 1971 lottery draw to determine the order in which men would be conscripted during 1972 (at the time of the draw it was projected the ceiling number of those called could be lower than 125, it was never suggested it may end lower than 100). The series of blows he was powerless against culminated when his birthday drew a number low enough that it seemed he would not escape induction.

The point of Anne giving him this structure is that even among the cohort of incoming freshmen of the college class of '75, Daniel would've belonged to the small group in the threatening circumstance: a man wasn't eligible for the draft lottery until the calendar year he turned 19. The college freshman incoming that September with January-September 1953 birthdays were not part of the August draft lottery draw, only the boys with birthdays in October, November & December 1952.

Daniel, starting college in September 1971 with his 099 number in hand, knew what the government had scheduled for him in 1972: he'd watch the boys with the lowest numbers get inducted in the January-March period, then the middling low numbers in April-June, and so on until they got to him & he received his induction notice- report for duty in 30 days- in the second half of 1972. He knew he could finish his college year, make whatever connections he could toward his vocation of journalism during that time, but then he'd be going to viet nam unless he absconded, did something frightful to be deemed medically or morally unfit, or the war ended.

In October 1971 Daniel would have seen the final ceiling for the previous 1951 birthday boys placed at number 125. He'd have turned 19 in December 1971, and completed his freshman year of college in May 1972.

Daniel would have attended a pre‐induction physical examination (all numbers 215 and below did) during those months he spent biting his nails about the probability of involuntary service taking him out of college & the possibly of it taking his life.

And then his luck dramatically shifted: Nixon, seeking public favor ahead of his re-election bid, announced on 28 June 1972 new policy that draftees would be given other assignments unless they volunteered to be posted to viet nam: no more boys would be forced to the frontline (to 'get their ass shot off', the common refrain of the day), removing the incentive of dodgers.

It's hard to imagine the emotion of that day for Daniel after watching the older boys be compelled to die against their will in that place year after year of his entire middle school-high school stretch. Seriously, high school yearbooks from that era have "In Memoriam" sections for alumni soldiers, go google some up.

Once again it indicates Daniel was in the smaller, set apart group even among his smaller, set apart cohort, this time the participants in '71 draft lottery: those who had been drawn low and middle low numbers had already been involuntarily sent to viet nam in the first half of 1972, including boys born just days before and days after Daniel. This time he had the luck: his number was high enough that he ended up with a choice.

Now Daniel could be sure he would survive a few years in the military. He didn't have to do anything that might harm a future as an American journalist, and perhaps those years of service would even open a few doors for him.

Then, on 1 September 1972, the final 1972 draft call was announced- it ended at number 95. When the ceiling sliced a hair's breathe under Daniel number, he was free, whether the war ended or no. He could go back to school after just a gap year, or whatever else he chose to do.

Over and over, by random circumstance Daniel Molloy is set apart from even his cohorts that were already set apart, yet he also has luck others don't have, and ends up with choices others were denied. It's a perfect match to the rhythm of his textual experiences: tripping over a vampire when looking for interesting interveiws; with Armand; with the early 80's Hiv terror; and with firestorm Akasha.

The often inferred 2 December 1952 birthday provides clear understanding on why a 20 year old journalism student with a connection to a "New York publisher" was "roaming the bars of the world with his tape recorder, trying to get the flotsam and jetsam of the night to tell him some truth" (TQOTD p68) instead of attending during the 1972/73 academic year: Daniel had expected to be inducted in the October-December period of 1972, and so made plans to extend a summer project/gig/internship until he was called up, and then found out in September he wouldn't be. Far too late to alter his plan, he continued "roaming the bars of the world with his tape recorder, trying to get the flotsam and jetsam of the night to tell him some truth" right up until the night he found Louis.

We know so little about Daniel Molloy before he interviewed the vampire in San Francisco in February 1973. We know at that young age he already had the experience of "a compulsive traveler" TQOTD p88, and that he was a reporter who wanted the interview for a 'Studs Terkel' type gig in broadcast radio ("You wanted an interview. Something to broadcast on the radio." IWTV p66). We know the only plausible explanation for his success in getting IWTV published via the approach he canonically took is having had a pre-existing connection to the New York publisher ("sending the copies off to a New York publisher, so that a book was in the making before he ever stood before Lestat's gate." TQOTD p68). Logically that connection could have only come from already having been published by them, family, or from an employer or university. And we know the interview happened only days after the 27 January 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords for an immediate cease fire and withdrawl of American troops from the war within 60 days, and the resulting anouncement that the Viet Nam draft was thus ended.

The well supported 2 December 1952 birthday offers one slim insight on Daniel Malloy before the interview with subtextual support from canon: We know he was traveling, and that he had immediate access to a car the next morning when he was ½ drained, to travel "a few hundred miles a day" TQOTD p68 to reach New Orleans, (a distance of 2,400 miles) indicates he had already been traveling in it. If this is the case, in the 8 months from June 1972- January 1973 his extended internship/project/gig search for interviews involved him roadtripping (a common pastime then for youth with cars- and without- they hitchhiked) around the US and Canada and/or Mexico: "bars of the world", not the bars of America- explaining the passport he had to have already had in his pocket when Armand captured him to have been able to immediately fly to Europe when released. We know that his family was not wealthy ("checks went out to kin, of that he'd made certain" TQOTD p93) but somehow Daniel also had access to money to buy the airplane ticket to Lisbon that very morning when Armand told him to run- this middle class white boy must have cashed out his prized college fund before he ever interviewed Louis. Why would one have done that to finance roaming in search of interviews in 1972? Because he thought he was being sent to vietnam.

But here's the rub:
A 25 November 1952 birthday would have had identical effect in-universe. And 25 November and 2 December are the *only* dates that would have. The impossibility of choosing one over the other is why fandom had never assigned a birthday to Daniel Molloy.

But now we know. In our world, his birthday is 11 December.

As a gift to fandom marking Anne Rice's death this text reference work has been dedicated to the public domain by its author. All rights reserved copyright of the digital documents it links to is held by the respective owners.

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