You can use your St. Louis County Library card to borrow titles from these partner libraries:
1 of 1 copy available
By the twentieth century, the exorcism had all but vanished, wiped out by modern science and psychology. But Ray Russell—praised by Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro as a sophisticated practitioner of Gothic fiction—resurrected the ritual with his classic 1962 horror novel, The Case Against Satan, giving new rise to the exorcism on page, screen, and even in real life.
Teenager Susan Garth was “a clean-talking sweet little girl” of high school age before she started having “fits”—a sudden aversion to churches and a newfound fondness for vulgarity. Then one night, she strips in front of the parish priest and sinks her nails into his throat. If not madness, then the answer must be demonic possession. To vanquish the Devil, Bishop Crimmings recruits Father Gregory Sargent, a younger priest with a taste for modern ideas and brandy. As the two men fight not just the darkness tormenting Susan but also one another, a soul-chilling revelation lurks in the shadows—one that knows that the darkest evil goes by many names.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
October 13, 2015 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781101627136
- File size: 784 KB
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781101627136
- File size: 784 KB
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
August 15, 2015
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.COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-