The Devil's Own Work

Guardian Fiction Prize-winning and extraordinarily highly critically acclaimed, The Devil's Own Work is a subtle, compulsive hallucinatory tale of possession. A world-renowned writer living in the South of France owes his extraordinary career to a mysterious literary spirit -- or is it a demon?-- that controls him. The existence of this supernatural muse, and the price it exacts, remain hidden until the famous writer's death, when the spirit is transferred to a rising but as yet unformed literary hopeful, whose own celebrity begins immediately and inexplicably to grow. The only clues to these two possessions are an ancient, inscrutable manuscript and the continuing presence of an apparently ageless woman who attaches herself in turn to these gifted but soon distracted and eventually desperate men. And as the narrator, a guileless teacher of literature, pieces their stories together, we begin to see what can happen when an artist surrenders to the charm of fame.

This modern version of the Faust legend has an old man of letters pass down to a young writer an ancient manuscript which bestows the gift of easy literary style and fluency -- and consequently head-turning success -- while blocking entirely any genuine creative power. To underline the devilishness of the bargain, the young author is seen to gradually throw away normal human decency as he gives in to overwhelming self-indulgence, and comes under the sensual sway of the old man's seductive mistress. On one level then, pure Faust. On another, Alan Judd's book, winner of the 1991 Guardian Fiction Prize, is a sophisticated self-referential commentary on the cliquish post-modern literary scene. This stylish and substantial novel is a clever attack on those who elevate insubstantial style.