written by Harriet Klausner on 13/03/2007
Conversations with the Devil
Jeff Rovin
Forge, Mar 2007, $24.95
ISBN: 0765307030
In somewhat isolated Delwood, Connecticut, two hours on back roads to any major city, the Delwood Academy, affectionately known as "Delac", is considered a pipeline to Yale. Though she never attended the school, psychologist Sarah Lynch works with some of the students who go there as many suffer from isolation with where they live as they have virtual choices through the Internet.
Still, when Sarah learns that one of her Delacian patients, Fredric Marash, committed suicide she is despondent and wonders how she failed him. Rationalizing that she will not make the same mistake twice, she looks at what turned Fredric into a Satanist and if that worship of the Devil led to his taking his life. Sarah lost her faith in God years ago after the Lord failed to heed her desperate prayers during a tragedy. However, the cynical rationalist is unprepared for Mr. Devil to visit her at her office. The glib visitor spins a different take on the bible and the war between him and God but conceals that the latest battleground is Sarah's soul as he seductively offers her the choice of happiness while he claims his adversary demands kneeling in total adulation.
Once the Devil makes his initial appearance that occurs just after the opening set up of place, time and catalyst, readers will not be able to put down this fascinating "dialogue." Sarah is terrific as she has doubts about God in spite of her best friend who is a nun. Her friend tries to counter what Sarah sees within herself, her family and with her patients. When the slick Devil arrives he smoothly provides her choices that look so much nicer and freer than what God commands of the faithful. Who will win the latest war between Heaven and Hell, not fought as End of Days universe-wide Armageddon, but instead one soul at a time?
Harriet Klausner
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