There is an America that is that of the dream, of the sparkling skyscrapers of New York and the thousand possibilities. Then there is a cruel, ruthless, ancestral America, in which the law of the strongest has not yet completely passed over to law and justice and where peace does not always smile on the just.
Peter Farris in his novel “The Devil Himself” (NN Editore, 2023, pp. 272, also e-book) talks to us about a slice of this deep America, hidden among the swamps of Georgia, where snakes and alligators share the space and habits with human beings who barely keep their inner demons at bay…and sometimes leave them free to run around and inflict pain.
Maya, the protagonist of the novel, is only eighteen years old, but she has already met many, too many demons. She is a prostitute and part of the luxury harem of the powerful Lucio. Above all, she has become the favorite of the Mayor, a corrupt, perverse man who one day, in the throes of excitement, lets slip important information to her about the shady business he is conducting with Mexican drug traffickers. Maya now knows too much and must disappear. To kill her, Lucio's henchmen take her to a field dominated by ghostly scarecrows. But a ghost, albeit in flesh and blood, appears out of nowhere and saves the young woman, punishing Lucio's men with brutal violence. The specter is Leonard Moye. It has always lived on the scarecrow lands. He has a past as an alcohol smuggler and is an angry, lonely and dangerous man. For some he is the devil personified, but he becomes attached to Maya in a way he hasn't felt with another human being in a long time and will be willing to do anything to defend her. Also to forgive those who in the past broke his heart and took away meaning from his life.
The Devil Himself is a fast-paced and rhythmic southern noir , which tells of an America held hostage by dark and ferocious, violent and unscrupulous forces . But Peter Farris' novel, excellently translated by Valentina Daniele who is also responsible for the beautiful final note to the book , is also a hymn to the values of solidarity and communities . It is a crude elegy, but full of hope to the possibilities of redemption granted by loyalty, courage, by that sense of justice that leads human beings to sacrifice in order to repair an injustice and protect the weak. That sense of justice that transforms a devil into an exterminating angel.