A master class in the difficult art of first-person, narrative nonfiction ... The prose has wonderful momentum even when he’s writing about arcane debates in the early Christian church. Each chapter is a turn, a surprise. The writing is never clichéd, nor is the thinking.
One big, sloppy mess that is written strictly from the perspective of the minority of humankind who call themselves Christians ... There are hints along this crooked journey that Sullivan was as confused while writing his book as I was reading it.
Mr. Sullivan’s account of how belief in the Devil gradually disappeared in the West is plausible, if conventional ... Mr. Sullivan is a gifted storyteller, even if the shifts between recent events and intellectual history can be jarring. Not everyone will find his concluding equivocation satisfying.
This is not an easy book to read, and some parts are profoundly disturbing. Sullivan offers crucial insights, but timid readers should think carefully before entering its dark labyrinth.
The book’s most entertaining writing is memoiristic, as Sullivan throws himself into the Catemaco adventure with self-deprecating humor, but what holds it all together is a sincere yearning to understand evil. It’s a dizzying plunge into darkness in search of moral clarity.
