SOURCE: “Witchcraft Is Their Science,” in New York Times Book Review, October 24, 1993, p. 38.

In the following review, West offers tempered evaluation of Lasher.

If you have read The Witching Hour, you will understand who's who among the horde of names unleashed in Anne Rice's new novel; Lasher. Reading the novel is often like hearing someone mumble on in a monotone about famous cricketers of the 19th-century when you, the reader, are a baseball fan or a fan of nothing at all.

Lasher, about the branches and generations of a witch matriarchy called Mayfair, evokes part of London once given over to a hospital for leprous women. In their complex comings and goings, the Mayfair witches wangle themselves into the fabric of New Orleans society with experienced ease; they are a subversive class that has risen and prospered over the centuries without always doing what they were best at...