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by Michael Poore
A stunningly imaginative, sharp, funny, and slyly tender novel featuring the Devil himself, John Scratch.
He's made of wood. He cooks an excellent gumbo. Cows love him. And he's the world's first love story... and the world's first broken heart. Meet the darkly handsome, charming John Scratch, aka the Devil. Ever since his true love, a fellow fallen angel named Arden, decided that Earth was a little too terrifying and violent, John Scratch has been trying to lure her back from the forgiving grace of Heaven. Though neither the wonders of Egypt nor the glories of Rome were enough to keep her on Earth, John Scratch believes he's found a new Eden: America.
John Scratch capitalizes on the bounty of this arcadia as he shapes it into his pet nation. Then, one dark night in the late 1960s, he meets three down-on-their-luck musicians and strikes a deal. In exchange for their souls, he'll grant them fame, wealth, and the chance to make the world a better place. Soon, the trio is helping the Devil push America to the height of civilization - or so he thinks. But there's a great deal about humans he still needs to learn, even after spending so many millennia among them.
Overflowing with imagination, insight, and humor, rippling with history and myth, Up Jumps the Devil is as madcap and charming as the Devil himself.
Paperback original
"Starred Review. In Poore's hands, the world's oldest antagonist becomes an unlikely but thoroughly lovable hero." - Publishers Weekly
"The sustained comedy in this hilarious novel is equaled only by its heart, and the myriad ways there are for it to break. I love this book. Michael Poore writes like an angel." - Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish
"Part fable, part warped historical travelogue, Up Jumps the Devil is an inscrutably charming debut novel that poses the question: What if Satan wasn't that bad a guy? I don't know where Michael Poore came from, but I sure am glad he's here." - Patrick deWitt, New York Times bestselling author of The Sisters Brothers
This information about Up Jumps the Devil was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Michael Poore's work has appeared in the Southern Review, the Carolina Quarterly, Hayden's Ferry Review, Fiction, StoryQuarterly, and Glimmer Train and has been nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize. His 2009 story "Blood Dauber," written with Nebula Award nominee Ted Kosmatka, appeared in Asimov's and has been nominated for the prestigious Sturgeon Award. It also won the Reader's Choice Award and was selected for inclusion in the 2010 Year's Best Science Fiction anthology. Up Jumps the Devil is his first novel.
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