Two-Step Devil
先知畫家與天使
內容介紹
- 現實版的《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》
"Religions are myths invented by men to keep power away from women, but even when you recognize this you will not be able to save yourself. You will lose everything but you will never lose blue."
T he Prophet是一位七十歲的獨居鰥夫，整天除了農作，就是把上帝投影給他看的影像畫下來。沒錯！投影！據T he Prophet所述，視野內會出現一片潔白的正方形布幕，上映著神想讓他看到的畫面。
有一天The Prophet出門尋找作畫材料，在對街的加油站看到一位少女雙手被束帶捆綁，坐在車子後座對著一對成年男女百依百順。剎那間，The Prophet知道上帝要他去拯救這個少女，並透過她向白宮傳達末日預言。於是他帶走少女，回到自己獨居的小屋。
故事開頭，讀者只知道The Prophet有個不再有人稱呼的本名。他的太太曾經流產，在成功生下一個男嬰不久後罹患乳癌辭世。The Prophet帶著兒子來到這片荒蕪，以農作維生。不過，讀者不知道The Prophet的早年生活，兒子長大後為什麼不再回家？他又是何時開始看到白色的布幕？這些細節都會隨著故事推移陸續出現，穿插在The Prophet與神/惡魔的對話中。中間段，作者保留一整章節給被拯救的少女，以其視角訴說少女自己與親生母親的關係，為什麼從事風俗業，以及被The Prophet派去華盛頓特區向白宮進言的旅程。兩個主要角色都有完整又能引起共鳴的過去。The Prophet在故事最後自盡，他的畫作卻被少女從質疑爸爸的兒子手中救了下來，受藝術館長讚嘆不已。
這本書是信念、懷疑、性別、墮胎、希望、絕望、犯罪、童年與為人父母的社會寫照，也是兩個彼此救贖的孤獨靈魂的相遇， 更為讀者提供一個愴然卻充滿希望的生命出口。
“I will tell you what it means to be a woman, mother said. At night you lie awake and plan the things you will do the next day. Make a good breakfast with some eggs, wash and sweep up, go out and find a job. Then morning comes and you cannot do any of those things. A woman who makes plans will always fail.”
作者介紹
《I Want to Show You More》的作者，該書入圍了洛杉磯時報圖書獎處女作獎（Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award）和美國國家書評人協會獎處女作獎（National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize）。另一本《Fire Sermon》(博達代理)，被經濟學人雜誌（The Economist）、舊金山紀事報（San Francisco Chronicle）、LitHub、彭博社（Bloomberg）和The Times Literary Supplement評選為年度最佳圖書。作為Oxford American的特約編輯，奎特羅的小說曾刊登於The New Yorker、The Paris Review、The New York Review of Books和Ploughshares。奎特羅目前與家人住在田納西州的查塔努加。
書評
“Quatro reckons with faith and the nature of evil in her daring and disturbing latest . . . It’s hard to turn away from Quatro’s electrifying vision.” — Publishers Weekly
“In 2014, a visionary 70-year-old man develops a bond with a captive teenage girl that could change both their destinies . . . By alternating between perspectives and pushing the novel’s formal boundaries, Quatro daringly explores the evils and mercies, large and small, that steer the courses of human lives. A searing and innovative allegory for our turbulent times.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Jamie Quatro is a writer of sinuous, muscular power and grace. Two-Step Devil is a starkly gorgeous story of God and loss and art and love, and her best book yet." — Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds
“Reading this novel is like holding on to a live wire. Jamie Quatro is the real thing. The music of these sentences lights my hair on fire.” — Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness
“In this spellbinding story of good and evil, revelation and madness, Jamie Quatro ponders all the ways in which innocence and vulnerability can be exploited in a culture that deliberately turns from human suffering. Beautiful and brave and brilliant, shot through with mystery and love, Two-Step Devil is a novel that only Jamie Quatro could have written — and only, I suspect, with an angel peering over her shoulder." — Margaret Renkl, author of The Comfort of Crows
“Jamie Quatro's Two-Step Devil compelled me with almost supernatural force. I could not turn away. It's a book that wrestles with the biggest questions about sin and salvation, violation and agency--striding fearlessly into narrative and political terrain almost always treated with knee-jerk, agenda-driven simplicity--but the pulse at the core of this breathtaking novel is unequivocally human, tender and alive--formally daring and utterly riveting.” — Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters
“Glorious, rich, mad, wonderful, daring and epic in its scope, Two-Step Devil is simply thrilling to read.” — Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital
“Jamie Quatro is one of the finest, and most fearless, American writers currently working. Her new novel, Two-Step Devil, is, among other things, an intense exploration of the Christian faith, a deeply empathetic portrait of a weirdo, and a peerlessly innovative modern-day theodicy. I've never read anything like it. I suspect no one has.” — Tom Bissell, author of Creative Types
“The bold, ingenious, impassioned Two-Step Devil takes risks—tonally, formally and theologically—that would terrify a less masterly writer than Jamie Quatro. Her unforgettable characters, her meticulous observation of backwoods folklife and her wide-ranging intellect come together to create a novel that's a wild and rich entertainment, a profound interrogation of God's ways to Man, and--perhaps most daring of all—a story of simple human compassion." — David Gates, author of A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me
“The characters in Jamie Quatro’s Two-Step Devil will surely join the pantheon of Hazel Motes, Temple Drake, and Howard Finster. They are their own peculiar theological texts, defying doctrinal consistency—and thank God for that.” — Charles Marsh, author of Evangelical Anxiety
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