A character known only as “the boy” begins interviewing an alleged vampire whose name is Louis de Pointe du Lac. The vampire is white and smooth, preternaturally beautiful, and the boy gasps at the sight of him. He says he was 25-years old when he became a vampire and that his story begins in New Orleans in 1791.

Louis’s family lived on a plantation called Pointe Du Lac, on the borders of New Orleans. His brother had always had a religious bent but soon began to see visions of the Virgin Mary, various saints, and spent all his time praying at an altar. In his fervor, he wanted them to sell their property and use the money for missionary work in France. Louis laughed at his brother’s notions. Shortly afterward, his brother fell down some stairs and died, “as if being swept by a wind” (9).

The members of his family blamed Louis, even though he had not been involved. He leased the plantation and moved the family to a townhouse in New Orleans, where he “lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself” (11).