Hell: A Novel - Softcover

Butler, Robert Olen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802145094 ISBN 13: 9780802145093

Publisher: Grove Press, 2010

Synopsis

The new novel from one of American literature's brightest stars, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler's uproarious new novel is set in the underworld. Its main character, Hatcher McCord, is an evening news presenter who has found himself in Hell and is struggling to explain his bad fortune. He's not the only one to suffer this fate--in fact, he's surrounded by an outrageous cast of characters, including Humphrey Bogart, William Shakespeare, and almost all of the popes and most of the U.S. presidents. The question may be not who is in Hell but who isn't. McCord is living with Anne Boleyn in the afterlife but their happiness is, of course, constantly derailed by her obsession with Henry VIII (and the removal of her head at rather inopportune moments). Butler's Hell isn't as much a boiling lake of fire--although there is that--as it is a Sisyphean trial tailored to each inhabitant, whether it's the average Joes who die and are reconstituted many times a day to do it all again, or the legendary newspaperman William Randolph Hearst, doomed to obscurity as a blogger mocked by his fellows because he can't figure out Caps Lock. One day McCord meets Dante's Beatrice, who believes there is a way out of Hell, and the next morning, during an exclusive on-camera interview with Satan, McCord realizes that Satan's omniscience, which he has always credited for the perfection of Hell's torments, may be a mirage--and Butler is off on a madcap romp about good, evil, free will, and the possibility of escape. Butler's depiction of Hell is original, intelligent, and fiercely comic, a book Dante might have celebrated.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Olen Butler teaches creative writing at Florida State University.

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Andrew Davidson Been wondering who's in hell? Robert Olen Butler has the answer: just about everyone, including people who (in our world) aren't dead yet. Interestingly, the kind of life a person has lived, good or evil, doesn't seem to matter. Dante's back, writing a novel as his eternal punishment, and Shakespeare's there, too, weeping for quill and ink because "his hard drive keeps crashing and he loses his plays." George W. Bush is confused and thinks he's in Heaven, and Dick Cheney is kvetching with Beelzebub (Satan's right-hand demon) about the stupidity of their respective bosses. Jerry Seinfeld's comedy routine is bombing, and Christopher Hitchens is making out with Mother Teresa, which is probably equal torture for both. At the center of this witty, wide-ranging satire is Hatcher McCord, anchor of the Evening News From Hell, whose interviews usually consist of a single question: "Why Do You Think You're Here?" (My favorite response is from J. Edgar Hoover: "I was needed. Can you imagine how many Communists there are down here?") While playing along as the devil's newscaster, Hatcher is secretly plotting to escape from the underworld, and he redoubles his efforts after Beatrice -- you know, "Dante's girl" -- claims that there is, in fact, a backdoor out. Butler doesn't shy away from tipping his hat in Dante's direction -- with this subject, it's impossible not to -- but whereas "The Inferno" shows a realm in which punishments are unimaginably painful, "Hell" features a never-ending series of inconveniences. Cellphones exist but never get a strong signal, the universal screensaver is the Windows Blue Screen of Death and Butler writes that "keeping up with advances in technology is one of the great tortures of Hell for the old-timers." In fact, when Hatcher encounters Virgil and asks him which hell Dante traveled through, Virgil replies: "This one. But low-tech." Call me a traditionalist, but I miss the good old days. Boiling blood, deserts of burning sand and sinners frying forever -- now that's damnation! And yet, for all Dante's medieval fire and brimstone, what's often forgotten is that at the heart of his "Inferno," in the center of the last and lowest circle, Satan is encased in a block of ice. Butler's "Hell" also has a cold heart, but in an entirely different way. There's no denying that this is a funny book, with some terrific images, but the writing is used to show off the author's clever ideas rather than to generate complex characters or a compelling story. Hatcher's objective is to escape, but when hell doesn't seem much worse than a bad day at the office, what's the rush?
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0802145094
• ISBN 13: 9780802145093
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240