THE CASE AGAINST SATAN

Name: THE CASE AGAINST SATAN
Author: Ray Russell
ISBN: 978-0-14-310727-9

by Ray Russell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 13, 2015

There’s no doubt that Russell got to demonic possession before Blatty and Ira Levin, but that alone isn’t enough to possess...

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A teenage girl’s demonic possession forces a young priest to confront his own crisis of faith in this rediscovered piece of pulp theology.

Russell (Absolute Power, 1992, etc.) is perhaps best known for the screenplays of X: The Man With the X-ray Eyes and Mr. Sardonicus (adapted from his own short story), though his novels and stories earned him a 1991 World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement. This novel—his first—begins when young Father Gregory is called to take over a parish from an abruptly departed predecessor. He’s barely settled when one of his new parishioners brings in his teenage daughter, telling tales of the girl’s rebelliousness. Gregory, a believer in psychoanalysis and the author of magazine articles that have troubled his superiors, is reluctant to believe what his bishop immediately apprehends: that the girl is possessed by the devil. Many of the plot elements—young female victim; older priest stalwart in his belief; younger colleague’s faith imperiled by his acceptance of contemporary rationality—turned up in William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, and it may be that Blatty’s lashings of gore and sexualized violence were his shrewdest innovation. For too much of its brief length, Russell’s novel reads like a theological debate, and a dusty one at that. The whodunit element grafted onto the denouement is a clumsy concession to storytelling.

There’s no doubt that Russell got to demonic possession before Blatty and Ira Levin, but that alone isn’t enough to possess anyone to read this book.

Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-14-310727-9

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Penguin

Review Posted Online: July 29, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.