Louis's brother dies after a mysterious fall, leaving Louis consumed by guilt and living recklessly in New Orleans.

Lestat transforms Louis into a vampire by feeding him blood from his own wrist.

Louis makes his first human kill and is immediately consumed by guilt, unlike the indifferent Lestat.

Louis burns down the Pointe du Lac plantation as he and Lestat flee the suspicious enslaved workers.

Lestat transforms a five-year-old orphan girl named Claudia into a vampire to manipulate Louis into staying.

Claudia tricks Lestat into drinking poisoned blood and slits his throat in an attempt to kill him.

Louis and Claudia flee New Orleans and sail to Europe in search of other vampires like themselves.

Louis and Claudia travel through Eastern Europe and find only primitive, mindless vampire revenants with no answers.

Louis and Claudia attend the Theatre des Vampires in Paris and watch the vampire cast murder a woman on stage.

Louis meets the ancient vampire Armand in the underground catacombs beneath the Theatre des Vampires.

Louis transforms the doll maker Madeleine into a vampire to serve as a companion for Claudia.

Lestat arrives at the Theatre des Vampires, scarred and alive, and exposes Claudia's attempt to kill him.

Armand's vampires lock Claudia and Madeleine in a sunlit room where they are burned to death.

Louis nails the Theatre des Vampires shut and burns it down with all of Armand's vampires trapped inside.

Louis attacks the boy interviewer but leaves him alive; the boy immediately leaves to find Lestat's address.

Louis's story begins with grief and self-destruction after his brother's death, making him vulnerable to transformation by the vampire Lestat. Bound to Lestat on a Louisiana plantation, Louis struggles with guilt and killing while the two grow increasingly hostile toward each other. Their toxic partnership shifts when Lestat impulsively turns a young orphan girl named Claudia into a vampire, giving Louis someone to love. Claudia eventually attempts to kill Lestat, and she and Louis flee to Europe hoping to find answers about their origins among older vampires. In Paris they encounter the theatre vampire Armand and his coven, but Lestat's arrival sets off a chain of events that costs Claudia her life. Louis takes devastating revenge by burning the Theatre des Vampires, then drifts through the world until the interview itself ends with the boy chasing immortality despite everything Louis has shared.

The essential rise and fall of Louis's vampire life.

Louis attacks a priest during his convalescence after the priest declares his dead brother was possessed by the devil.

Lestat drags the young Freniere plantation heir away from a duel and kills him, defying Louis's attempts to stop it.

Louis visits Babette Freniere and encourages her to seize control of her family's plantation after her brother's death.

The enslaved workers at Pointe du Lac grow suspicious after witnessing the vampires' coffins and other strange behaviors.

Louis kills Lestat's bedridden father at Lestat's request before they abandon the plantation for good.

Babette traps Louis and Lestat in her wine cellar and calls Louis a creature of the devil.

Claudia kills two household maids in New Orleans, nearly exposing the vampires to the outside world.

Louis takes Claudia back to the house where he first found her and confesses he was the one who fed on her.

Claudia taunts Lestat relentlessly during their evenings together, demanding to know who originally made him a vampire.

Lestat's musician companion arrives at their door already transformed into a new vampire just before Louis and Claudia flee.

At a European village inn, Louis hears the painter Morgan recount how his wife Emily was killed by a vampire.

Louis and Claudia battle and destroy a shambling, mindless revenant vampire inside the ruins of an old building.

Claudia presents Louis with a woman-shaped doll, then crushes it and demands to know what it feels like to make love.

A vampire mimics Louis across Parisian rooftops before delivering a handwritten invitation to the Theatre des Vampires signed by Armand.

Armand tells Louis that most vampires die by suicide and says he believes Louis can save him from that despair.

Before and just after his transformation, Louis's world is defined by grief, moral weakness, and an encounter with a priest that foreshadows his complicated relationship with religion. On the plantation, Lestat's cruelty toward humans and Louis's conflicted attempts at kindness reveal the deep incompatibility between the two vampires. The creation of Claudia and her difficult growing years bring new tensions, including her dangerous killing of household servants and her anguished confrontation with the truth of her own origins. The failed attempt to kill Lestat leads to fire, flight, and a bleak sea voyage during which Louis fears the worst. In Eastern Europe the vampires find only horror, and in Paris new threats emerge around every corner, from Armand's mysterious invitation to Claudia's shattering act of self-expression with the doll. Armand's private confession about the inevitable fate of most immortals closes out this pool with a somber view of what eternity truly costs.

The supporting scenes that shaped Louis's immortal journey.

Louis tells the boy he lived as a mortal who wanted to die but lacked the courage to act on it.

Louis threatens to leave Lestat and find a different vampire teacher who will actually answer his questions.

Claudia deduces that Lestat must have killed his own maker because he could not tolerate being enslaved by him.

Claudia announces her intention to kill Lestat and warns Louis not to intervene when the time comes.

Louis visits his brother's old church, enters the confessional, and kills the priest who calls him a devil.

Lestat returns to their New Orleans home scarred and burned, revealing he survived Claudia's poisoning attack.

Louis hurls a lantern at Lestat during their fight, setting the room ablaze as he and Claudia escape.

Claudia warns Louis that she felt Armand attempting to command her to die, but Louis dismisses her fears.

Armand tells Louis during a private visit that Santiago suspects Louis of having murdered his own vampire maker.

Louis kills a Parisian artist after a struggle over a sketch the artist made of Louis's unnatural face.

Armand privately admits in his tower room that he telepathically manipulated Louis into transforming Madeleine.

Armand's vampires capture Louis and seal him inside a coffin bricked behind a wall in the Theatre.

Armand frees Louis from the sealed coffin but admits he was powerless or unwilling to save Claudia.

Armand confesses he was responsible for Claudia's death, but Louis receives the revelation with total indifference.

Louis separates from Armand after returning to New Orleans, certain that Armand will not survive much longer.

From the opening of the interview, Louis frames his entire existence as shaped by passivity — a fatal flaw that begins with his mortal suicidal drift and extends through every major choice he fails to make. His early confrontations with Lestat over questions of morality and origin establish the intellectual loneliness that will drive him across the world seeking answers. Claudia's deductions about Lestat's past, her decisive plan to kill him, and Lestat's terrifying return all force Louis to confront the consequences of doing nothing. In Paris, a series of private revelations — Armand's manipulation, Santiago's suspicions, and Claudia's unheeded warnings — expose how little control Louis has over his own fate. The sealing of Louis in a coffin and Armand's admission of guilt over Claudia's death strip Louis of any remaining hope or feeling. By the novel's close, Louis is emotionally hollow, separating from Armand without grief and leaving behind a cycle of destruction he was never able to stop.