Delightfully Divine

The Diviners

Libba Bray

Little, Brown and Company, 2012

'The Diviners' is an epic-sized historical novel, the novel moves at the pace of a flapper hopped up on giggle juice. It's 1926, and an evil wind is rising through New York City. A slippery and dangerous character--Naughty John--has lots to do, most of it involving...murder.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, Evie O’Neill gets in trouble for drinking, partying, and enjoying life. Her parents ship her off (horrors!) to Manhattan, to live with Uncle Will. At her uncle’s occult museum, Evie learns about diviners: gifted people with mental powers. This explains a lot why, when she's holding a physical item, Evie can divine secrets of the item's owner! Feeling less of a weirdo in cosmopolitan and supernatural New York, she meets a whole host of interesting characters in New York, from Memphis Campbell, a handsome, African American numbers runner, to Sam Lloyd, an  pickpocket of the Han Solo school of dashing rogues. And while she's enjoying the diversity and diversions of her new surroundings Naughty John is haunting the streets, killing people and creating gruesome scenes with their remains. Evie starts seeing flashes of these killings, and gradually realizes that only she has the divining ability and tenacity necessary to stop John before he enacts his terrible, dangerous schemes.

'The Diviners' is an excellent read, and its themes of demographic change and changing cultural expectations grant it a contemporary relevance beyond the mere fun of its zippy plot. The 20s slang might be overused, though that could be read as Evie’s slight desperation to keep up with her surroundings. Not all of the characters receive as much screen time as they deserve—Mabel, for example, and Memphis Campbell, who stays on the sidelines for the majority of the novel. Most of that’s probably a result to this being the first in a trilogy of novels, with some of the most fascinating plot threads left dangling for future volumes.

Although very long and particularly bloody at times, 'The Diviners' should have a pretty broad appeal for both male and female readers. Readers should know that it does contain a somewhat unexpected, if oblique, scene of sexual violence. The maturity and diversity of the characters--not to mention the accessible, yet energetic and very smart writing--give the novel a lot of crossover appeal for adult readers not leery of a YA stigma.

The Devils of Memory

Remembering Satan: A Tragic Case of Recovered Memory

Lawrence Wright

Vintage, 1995

Paul Ingram, a deputy sheriff in Washington State, was a friendly, respected member of his community. Then, in 1988, his daughters accused him of sexual abuse, Satan worship, murder, and blood-soaked orgies. Ingram, with no actual memories of any of this, confessed.

But he didn't remember any of this. And there was no physical evidence whatsoever.

Lawrence Wright, author of the recent book 'Going Clear' about Scientology, focuses on a different aspect of religion and religious mania: Satanism in the 80s, and how it became a panic, a contemporary witch hunt, with families shattering over vague accusations and dim memories. Wright starts out with the arrest, depicting the scenes of interrogation and confession with a novelist's eye for telling details and pacing. The scope of the book expands as the case drags on, with Wright exploring the lives of the Ingram family, their community, and the science and speculation behind false memories. Some of the most fascinating material involved the culture of the 80s, and how Satanism became a vast, invisible force working against normal, everyday Christians, even if there was no evidence real Satanists doing much of anything anywhere. Wright spends time talking about pop culture, politics, Satan-themed memoirs like 'Michelle Remembers', and how these forces worked together to create the myth of a massive Satanic conspiracy.

 

'Remembering Satan' is relatively short and absolutely gripping. I could not stop reading and finished the narrative in a long evening. Readers should know that, although written in a detached, journalistic tone, many of the topics are both controversial and disturbing. A number of the interviewees describe explicit physical, mental, and sexual abuse. Wright, however, succeeds in avoiding any tone of exploitation.