Recently, I had a disturbing conversation with a relative that made me stop and think about what I’m doing as a novelist.

He told me that members of our extended family were disappointed – that may be too mild a word – with me for writing “Water Music,” a homoerotic novel, which he says reflects badly on him. He refuses to read the book.

He suggested that those who have read and liked it were misguided in their kindness toward me and, far worse, that the late aunt who raised me – and whom I knew better than all the world – would’ve disapproved.

I was demoralized, furious and amused in that order – amused because I realized how much of him I had poured into all the disapproving daddies that my gay heroes face in “Water Music.” So I’ve had my revenge before he ever uttered a word.

Nor did his critique sway me to his viewpoint despite my initial deflation and anger. I continue to believe with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that injustice somewhere is injustice everywhere. I cannot oppose gay marriage – as my relative does – because I believe such opposition is a form of discrimination. And as Pope Francis recently remarked about gayness, “Who I am to judge?” – words this relative would do well to consider.

Recently, Anne Rice announced that she was returning to her most iconic character, the vampire Lestat, with the Oct. 28 publication of “Prince Lestat,” which thrilled me no end.

“Prince Lestat” would immediately follow the events of “The Queen of the Damned,” the third, and I think, the most sensuous book in “The Vampire Chronicles.” It is for me also the most homoerotic of the series, although I think Rice would say these books are instead vampire-erotic since her vampires cannot have sex. Whatever. The point is that in Rice’s work, bloodlust is a metaphor for lust, just as the relationship of the fun-loving Lestat and the depressive (and at times depressing) Louis – as well as that of Daniel, the interviewer in “Interview With the Vampire,” and the vampire Armand – is a metaphor for a gay relationship.

Looking back on it, I realize that these books paved the way for my own foray into homoeroticism with “The Games Men Play” series.