While I agree with everything you're saying, I think you do a fundamental disservice to your argument with the example of saying it's the writer's fault if I (the reader) go to Burger King and they told me to meet them at McDonald's. This is not really applicable to the concept of interpreting creative texts, I think, and also, I would bristle if anyone told me that my writing was unclear if I said "go to McDonald's" and the dumbass who read my note went to Burger King. I understand what you mean, but I think it doesn't work here. What Rice is doing is (and god, I hateherhateherhateher because of her ongoing attacks on my profession) less about clear communication and more about elevating her status as an Artist who knows what's good for you and knows more than you ever will. Any creative text by its nature is going to be open to interpretation; that's what makes art so... artistic. But communication in the more prosaic, directional sense, such as in your example, shouldn't be open to interpretation, and "fault" is more about goals and what the writing actually achieves of those goals than intrepretation and artistic quality/vision.

Sometimes, a reader can be dumb or bad. And in the Burger note, that's definitely a bad reading job. But a reader emotionally reacting to a creative work -- different ball o wax, and Anne Rice needs to just shut the hell up.