R. M. Koster

This is on my personal top ten list, but everyone else I've recommended it to detested it!

Carmichael is a novelist, and over the years, he has subconsciously invited a wide array of demons to inhabit him, as trade-offs in expediency. The demons (now legion) drive him in his writing, and he has become a thoroughly unlikeable person, but a wildly successful writer. He is not aware of being possessed.

His wife buys a dog for companionship. The pup, Furfante, bonds to Carmichael; and the valiant love of this little dog is the means of Carmichael's exorcism.

The narrator is a lowly sloth demon; the first invited in, but quickly usurped in place by more energetic pride and lust demons. So the language can be nasty, but is oh! so masterfully used. The descriptions of novel writing use powerful imagery. Carmichael tows the books' ectoplasmic hulk everywhere: "Carmichael was well advised to cast-off early, to plow straight across, to tie up stoutly, to have ample stores of provision..."

I've been studying the concept of evil, and the discussions in this book are helpful.

I am entertained any time I dip in.… (plus d'informations)