Lee Foust's Reviews > Black Magic

I don't think I'm such a bad guy. I feel pretty moral actually, a good partner and father--my son has even noted that I break his balls far less than most of his friends' dads so there's some actual testimony to my claims. So I hope you won't judge me too harshly when I say that I rooted for the villain with all my heart all the way through this super fun Gothic extravaganza. Too late to be a penny dreadful and too soon to emerge from the pulps, I think it's kind of remarkable that this novel, from 1909, exists at all. But I'm sure glad it does. So much fun. Like Paradise Lost it more or less proves that conflicted, regular old well-meaning people are cowardly, ignorant, and not to be trusted, but that the truly evil among us show great loyalty and commitment. Who wouldn't be Satan, treated as shabbily as he was by God, who wouldn't rebel and seek freedom from all that mamby-pamby priest talk? Not surprising to me this was written by a female author either, pitting all of the forces of otherness--gender, race, age, and sorcery--against all of the evils of a smug, immoral patriarchy and church. I found it blithely and deliciously subversive but maybe I missed the whole point. Well, probably. Also: great (ambiguous) ending!