Rescue or Kidnapping in “Two-Step Devil” https://ift.tt/GfFbp0o
While ambitious in scope and stylistically unlike anything I’ve read in recent months, Jamie Quatro’s Two-Step Devil is as intriguing as the title leads us to believe. With a propulsive plot and storylines of contemporary and past relevance, this is a book we can be sure will leave an impact on any reader.
Set in the rural south, Two-Step Devil brings to life a character called the Prophet, though back in his youth he was known as Winston. The Prophet is a seventy-year-old man living on his own in a beat-down cabin atop Lookout Mountain. His wife is long passed, and his son has moved away from the mountain for a more vibrant life in the city of Nashville. The Prophet is obliged to sell vegetables and lend his “sight” to random passersby on the mountain, making a meager living and humbly biding his time until he’s able to accomplish his true mission: to pass along his divine visions to the White House. It isn’t until the Prophet is at the junkyard one day, searching for scraps to complete an art installation in his handmade home, that he understands how he’ll pass along his message.
Michael is in the backseat of a car at a desolate gas station near the junkyard when the Prophet first sees her, hands zip tied. And the ones who hold her hostage are obviously keeping her subdued by drugs. He realizes immediately that she is the messenger, the Big Fish, and he must save her. “Big Fish would see how the Prophet had already predicted things. Big Fish would tell the new president about things yet to come, the visions of the Earth’s last days.” After weeks of plotting her “escape” (or perhaps what might seem to most is actually a kidnapping), the Prophet brings Michael back to his art-filled cabin. The Prophet cares for Michael during her detox, and despite everything, the two form an unlikely friendship. For instance, Michael has only known how to use her body as an instrument for men, while the Prophet is certain that by teaching her his songs and stories and telling her about the visions, she will make it to the White House and save the world from itself. All the while, the Prophet is in a race against the clock against an advanced case of lung cancer. What’s more, these two characters are constantly in the presence of a third, more sinister, presence, the Two-Step Devil — who lurks in the corners and is always ready to orchestrate, or terminate, new plans.
More than its daring premise and bold themes of love and death, society and class, politics and religion, Two-Step Devil is an experiment in the process of writing and storytelling. Quatro defied the norm for narrative structure and, instead, broke the book into several parts that make it all the better. The first part is told from the Prophet’s point of view and examines not only the present he is in, but also how his past left a framework to get us to where we are today. As he nears death, the boundaries between past and present, visions and reality, begin to blur, and we are suddenly taken to the second part of the story, which follows Michael on her journey to Washington. Michael’s voice and narrative embody the childlike naivete of the fourteen year old she is, but it also gives a stream of consciousness account of what it was like as a fourteen year old addled by drugs and a life lived amongst others who only wanted her for what she could do for them. “My heart is beating fast and angry now because no way am I going back to foster care and the babies asleep in car seats being dropped off by social workers, the foster father always in a rage.” Michael’s wandering thoughts continue: “It’s time you did your part, Michael. Other girls we’ve taken in understand their privilege, understand how they must work to earn their keep.”
The third act switches literary form as it changes from a typical narrative to a one act play featuring the Prophet and Two-Step Devil. This section is more philosophical in nature and removes the reader from the story of the Prophet and Michael, instead immersing us in a discussion of religion and politics and division in America. It all comes together in the final section when the reader is taken down multiple paths, varying ways of how Michael’s life plays out. We are given a tragic ending, but then we are given the possibility of a hopeful ending. Like the rest of the story, where there are no clear-cut answers to difficult questions, we are not spoon fed the appropriate ending — in fact, we aren’t actually told the real ending at all. Rather, we get the opportunity to sit with characters and plots and themes that are unflinching and controversial, to really think about and chew on material that is both aggravating and thoughtful. Two-Step Devil is a book I will want and need to read again to fully absorb — but be fully aware this is not a chore, but a pleasure. Regardless, it’s a book everyone should read at least once.
FICTION Two-Step Devil By Jamie Quatro
Grove Press
Published September 10, 2024
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