Thursday, November 16, 2000
I just want to get my thoughts together about the book I just finished reading:
"The Demon" by Hubert Selby, Jr., Playboy Press, 1976.
A synopsis from the publisher.
"Harry White is a man haunted by a satyr's lust and an obsessive need for sin and retribution. The more Harry succeeds (a good marriage, a good corporate job) the more desperate he becomes, as a life of petty crime leads to fraud and murder and, eventually, to apocalyptic violence."
The last time a book made me feel this way was reading Minette Walter's "The Sculptress",(St. Martin's Press, 1993). I just remembered why I stopped reading murder mysteries about serial killers.
"The Demon" made me feel like a rubbernecker, not able to turn away from the scene of the accident, and about to cause an accident of my own.
Selby's everyman Harry White's descent into madness turns the mirror back on the reader to expose the sociopath in all of us.
"The Demon" by Hubert Selby, Jr., Playboy Press, 1976.
A synopsis from the publisher.
"Harry White is a man haunted by a satyr's lust and an obsessive need for sin and retribution. The more Harry succeeds (a good marriage, a good corporate job) the more desperate he becomes, as a life of petty crime leads to fraud and murder and, eventually, to apocalyptic violence."
The last time a book made me feel this way was reading Minette Walter's "The Sculptress",(St. Martin's Press, 1993). I just remembered why I stopped reading murder mysteries about serial killers.
"The Demon" made me feel like a rubbernecker, not able to turn away from the scene of the accident, and about to cause an accident of my own.
Selby's everyman Harry White's descent into madness turns the mirror back on the reader to expose the sociopath in all of us.
