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White Devil (2011)

by Justin Evans(Favorite Author)

3.36 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0297865919 (ISBN13: 9780297865919)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

George Weidenfeld & Nicholson

review 1: A ghost story set in Harrow, The White Devil is an interesting cultural artefact; it’s about a place few of us outside the elite know much about, written by an American who spent a gap year there, giving us a skewed yet fascinating picture of an odd corner of British society.It also makes the story feel very much like a 1970s ghost flick, all rain and grey and brown, a bit like Turn of the Screw or Don’t Look Now, a British funded film with obligatory male lead from the US. This is no bad thing, mind, we mention it purely for illustrative purposes.Andrew has been busted for drugs in the US. Sent to Harrow to as a last chance to straighten himself out by his rich father, he attracts the attention of a dangerous ghost. Andrew is a dead spit for Lord Byron, y’see, and t... morehe ghoul of Byron’s spurned, school-years lover has unfinished business. Andrew’s likeness, and the fact he’s playing the dissolute poet in a play, draws out this evil from the past.There’s some good atmosphere generated here, once the overly poetic prose settles down. The characters are all well drawn, the famed poet turned failed teacher Piers Fawkes being particularly noteworthy. There’s love, coming of age stuff, and moral wrangles to enjoy, but the trouble is with the plot; the adults are too quick to believe young Andrew. This removes much of the tension, reducing the protagonist to something of a cipher, and one feels that Evans is more interested in his characters’ mundane concerns than his ghost. Evocative, but not quite scary enough.
review 2: I love ghost stories and so I had high expectations when I bought this. Unusually, I read the paperback and not on my kindle so I wanted good value if this book was going to take up precious shelf space. I wasn't disappointed; I loved the setting of Harrow and the feeling of the main character, Andrew, being a fish out of water.I felt that Andrew's character and his housemaster, Piers Fawkes, were the most interesting, as was the librarian. I did get irritated with Persephone and I wasn't rooting for her at the end. The setting itself was brilliant; I really enjoyed learning more about this closed community and that of Byron's life as well. It was the school that made it for me, the nooks and crannies and the ghosts of boys who had been there hundreds of years before.Of the ghost stories I've read recently, I liked this a lot. However, I do think it was a bit long and Persephone needed to be more sympathetic. less

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