SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE 2025

'Compelling . . . I raced through this multi-generational, magical realistic story' DAILY MAIL

'A page-turning, rollicking novel . . . From the first page, I was spellbound' NATHAN HARRIS, New York Times bestselling author of THE SWEETNESS OF WATER

The Devil first visits Yetunde aboard a slave ship heading to America. Her home burned to ash, she lies shackled in the belly of the ship with only her dead sister's spirit for company. Worse, she has a caught the eye of a white man. To survive the hell that awaits her, the Devil offers his protection and a piece of his supernatural power. In return, Yetunde makes an incredible sacrifice.

Their bargain extends far beyond Yetunde's mortal lifespan. Over the next 175 years, the Devil visits her descendants in their darkest hour of need. There's Lucille, a conjure woman; Asa, the white-passing son of a slave; Louis and Virgil, a twentieth-century Cain and Abel; Cassandra, a girl who speaks to the dead; James, a father struggling to keep his family together; and many others. The Devil offers each of them his own version of salvation, all the while wondering: can he save himself, too?

'[An] exuberant slice of Southern gothic . . . Fayne follows Percival Everett and Andrea Levy in stressing the rich emotional lives of their characters' FINANCIAL TIMES

'Fayne's imaginative narrative illustrates how the choices made in each generation ripple through the next' WASHINGTON POST

'Ambitious, rollicking, heartbreaking, multi-vocal . . . it demands to be read over and over' MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE

About the Author

Rickey Fayne is a fiction writer from rural West Tennessee whose work has appeared in the New York Times, American Short Fiction, Guernica, The Sewanee Review, and The Kenyon Review, among other magazines. He holds an MA in English from Northwestern University and an MFA in Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. His writing embodies his Black, Southern, over-churched upbringing in order to reimagine and honor his ancestors' experiences. He has received support for his writing from Tin House, Community of Writers, Kimbillio, Sewanee, Bread Loaf, Yaddo, Willapa Bay, and MacDowell. Currently, he teaches fiction writing at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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