I, Lucifer
Finally, the Other Side of the Story
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
"A fiendishly sharp, intelligent examination of modern human life that is as funny as hell." —The Times (London)
The end is nigh and the Prince of Darkness has just been offered one hell of a deal: reentry into Heaven for eternity—if he can live out a well-behaved life in a human body on earth. It's the ultimate case of trying without buying and, despite the limitations of the human body in question (previous owner one suicidally unsuccessful writer, Declan Gunn), Luce seizes the opportunity to run riot through the realm of the senses. This is his chance to straighten the biblical record (Adam, it's hinted, was a misguided variation on the Eve design), to celebrate his favorite achievements (everything from the Inquisition to Elton John), and, most important, to get Julia Roberts attached to his screenplay. But the experience of walking among us isn't what His Majesty expected: instead of teaching us what it's like to be him, Lucifer finds himself understanding what it's like to be us.
By an author hailed by the Times Literary Supplement as one of Britain's top twenty young novelists, I, Lucifer is "a masterpiece . . . startlingly witty, original and beautifully written" (Good Book Guide).
"Duncan's witty and perverse, yet somehow life-affirming, Lucifer is powerful indeed." —Booklist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Paradise Lost, Milton set out to "justifie the wayes of God to men." In this novel, British author Duncan (Hope; Love Remains) attempts to justify the ways of Satan to the hip. God gives his evil subaltern a month in a human body, with an option to own, thus permanently casting off his pain-racked cosmological being. The grim alternative for Lucifer is to subsist in eternal nothingness. The vacant body belongs to Declan Gunn, a writer on the brink of suicide. Lucifer narrates his romps through escort service dates, cocaine-laced nights and, mostly, the thrills of the wondrous human sensorium. Lucifer options his life story from his starring role with Adam and Eve to his struggles with an autocratic God to a film producer and torments Declan's lover, Viola, with the promise of a juicy part in the upcoming movie. But for all his jauntiness, Lucifer must unexpectedly wrestle with Gunn's conscience, including Gunn's memories of Penelope, his alternately loathed and longed-for ex. When Lucifer makes the disastrous decision to see Penelope and forgive her for dumping him, he confronts the goodness of mercy, a battle that leaves him sick with nausea and cognitive disorientation. Lucifer tosses wisecracks around as if they were hand grenades. On the wickedness of a rival of Gunn's, he quips, "There's no murder in him, and only a very predictable dribble of lust. His soul, and billions like it, provide the cosmos with its muzak." Alas, Lucifer's wit doesn't often rise to this sharply satiric level: it's more like a series of outtakes from Bedazzled. This is the archetypal promising novel the author's talent with words eclipses the substance of his story.
