Richard a Devall

Old Letters & New Demons Richard a Devall

This is a novel of the combined genres, historic and speculative, for an adult audience. In 1929 Harry Crosby shot his girlfriend and two hours later he killed himself. They werefound fully clothed with their shoes off and their toe nails painted red. After this incident, Harry's wife Caresse, moved to an estate in Bowling Green Virginia, where she wrotepornography for Henry Miller and Anais Nin in the 1940's. She is a very strong femaleprotagonist. In 1983 John and Julia Gavis dug up their father, who was killed by their youngerbrother, along with their mother in 1978. This was in Spotsylvania, a fewmiles from Hampton Manor, an estate, where Caresse Crosby lived. When charged withdisinterment of a human body, John and Julia were wearing multiple layers of breadwrappers on their feet and hands and said it was to keep the demons away. I linked these two tales together because they made a great template for a novel. Iweaved the two stories back to Egypt, beginning in the 1920's, and ended the tale in thesummer of 2016. This novel is brimming with humor, sarcasm, wit and a fist full of ancient energy. Thecharacters in this novel don't blow themselves up in the first chapter, their demise is anartfully crafted train wreck whose tracks are built out of history, mystery and words thatadd up to chapters, and nail down the rails over time. Caresse Crosby is Constance in this novel and her compelling life story is told everyother chapter in letter form. It's in these letters the reader is allowed an intimate glimpseinto a real history of the 1920's, which until now, has been locked away. The male protagonist is stalked throughout the novel by a demonic energy. He slips inand out of reality as this force reveals itself and he relives the lives of those who havefallen before him. This gives the reader a researched view of ancient Egypt, Greece andearly Rome, ending in romantic betrayal, bewilderment and death. This is a two for one book. There's the story of Albert and Constance, aka Harry andCarasse, but also Greg Singleton, who in 2016 purchases a home in Bowling Greenand finds a talisman in a box that changes his personality and goals