The Devil's Own Work

By Alan Judd

After Edward, a rising young author, pens a savage review of the new novel by the world-famous O.M. Tyrell, he is surprised to receive an invitation to visit the old man at his villa in the south of France. The night of their meeting, Tyrell dies, and soon after, Edward’s career mysteriously starts to soar as he earns fame, fortune and critical acclaim. But despite his achievements, Edward seems haunted, even tormented. His friend, the narrator, begins to put together the pieces of the story: an ancient, inscrutable manuscript, a beautiful, ageless woman who attaches herself to whatever writer possesses it, and a bargain to achieve success at a terrible price . . . 

Winner of Britain’s prestigious Guardian Fiction Prize, Alan Judd’s modern classic The Devil’s Own Work (1991) is, as Owen King writes in the new introduction to this edition, “a perfect novel about the demonic possession that is literary ambition.” This edition also features a new afterword by the author, in which he reveals the inspirations for this haunting tale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valancourt Books
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781941147382

Alan Judd

Alan Judd is the author of eleven novels and two biographies. He previously served as a soldier in the British army and as a diplomat in the Foreign Office. Judd is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has won numerous awards including the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Heinemann Award. He currently writes for The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph. He lives in Sussex with his family.

Book preview

THE DEVIL’S OWN WORK

A Novel By

ALAN JUDD

VALANCOURT BOOKS

The Devil’s Own Work by Alan Judd

First published London: HarperCollins, 1991

First U.S. edition published New York: Knopf, 1994

First Valancourt Books edition 2015

Copyright © 1991 by Alan Judd

Introduction © 2015 by Owen King

Afterword © 2015 by Alan Judd

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the copying, scanning, uploading, and/or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher.

Published by Valancourt Books, Richmond, Virginia

http://www.valancourtbooks.com

Cover by M.S. Corley

INTRODUCTION

There are not many perfect novels, but there are a few, and they are always quick and stinging, rabbit punches to the solar plexus that leave black bruises. The Sun Also Rises, The Lord of the Flies, and The Turn of the Screw are examples that come to my mind. Every artistically successful novel is, in some sense, necessary. The reader feels that the story is worth being told. A perfect novel doesn’t feel told, however; in its completeness, a perfect novel feels delivered, and by extension the author of such a book appears in one’s imagination less like an author and more like a messenger tasked with a letter from beyond. Alan Judd’s The Devil’s Own Work is the epitome of that rare, flawless thing. It is a perfect novel about the demonic possession that is literary ambition.

The Devil’s Own Work is related by a nameless narrator who, unprepossessing to a fault, spends his lifetime swimming in the wake of Edward, an author whose star rises to fabulous heights after he acquires a mysterious manuscript bound in yellowing string. The manuscript is something of a package deal, coming as it does with the beautiful Eudoxie, whose face [has] the same fascination as watching a fire, the same flickering continuity and inconstancy, unchanging change. If you are beginning to catch a sulfurous whiff, I’ll concede that perhaps you are on to something, but I’ll also warn you not to expect any spiky-tailed imps or virgin sacrifices in the pages that follow. Though the novel is laced with the supernatural Alan Judd’s concerns are entirely, worryingly mortal.

The reality of evil is that it is the opposite of real, our narrator declares, and The Devil’s Own Work is his evidence, a chronicle of lives destroyed by seductive, incorporeal fantasies. As the proverb says, Nothing comes from nothing. Neither Edward’s life nor his novels are his own. Edward creates nothing and therefore he possesses nothing. The novels that Edward did not write but that he puts his name to are expressions of a smugly nihilistic philosophy that will be eclipsed along with his reputation. Our narrator’s self-­flattering attachment to Edward, and our narrator’s wife’s romantic feelings for Edward, will never be reciprocated.

The cursed manuscript is described as illegible, but exudes an uncomfortable sensation of nonsense, pernicious nonsense that was nevertheless tempting because at the same time it seemed that it could be made to mean something. It is a vicious prank and the joke is on anyone who believes that wishes can be granted. The punchline is ruination.

Which brings us back to Alan Judd, who surely did write The Devil’s Own Work. I know almost nothing about the man, but I will promise you, this novel did not appear on his doorstop like a foundling. No one handed it to him, bound in yellowing string or otherwise. In fact, The Devil’s Own Work is at its core a novelist’s brilliantly tart rebuke of the glorification of novelists. While literary sensations and stylistic fads flare bright and then disappear a second or two later, eaten by the night, the ones who last are at their desks, stacking up sentences. The process of making art is mostly dreary. It requires looking deeply into people, and into yourself – more deeply than you might wish. You shouldn’t expect riches or fame or the companionship of an ageless beauty. There is no special recipe for writing novels, no magic spell, no special easement; and anyone who would have you believe otherwise is a trickster, or worse.

Owen King

September 17, 2014

Owen King is the author, most recently, of the novel Double Feature. His work has appeared in such publications as Grantland, The New York Times Book Review, One Story, and Prairie Schooner. He is married to the novelist Kelly Braffet.

THE DEVIL’S OWN WORK

to John and Janet with my thanks

Chapter 1

Ihad it, you see, from Edward himself; though not all at once and never, I am sure, all of it. I don’t suppose anyone could tell it all, except perhaps Eudoxie, and she was – is – part of the problem. The origins pre-date my marriage and Edward’s fame. I now regard that time as our first youth but it seemed to us then, fresh from university and in London, the time of entry into full estate. Nothing was impossible and nothing unimagined, except failure. In my case you could say that I was merely wrong but Edward’s is more complicated. He had every success an ambitious man could wish; it was the cost that got him.

Of course, when he purchased that particular ticket he had no idea – which of us could have? – of what compound interest can mean, over a lifetime. I don’t suppose it even felt like a transaction, more another gift from a kindly Providence to add to his health, his looks, his charm, his winning disposition, his talent – his genius, it came to be called, but I at least am more cautious now. Everyone liked, even loved him, or perhaps I should say that no one disliked him and everyone felt drawn to him. I think I loved him, though what it was in him that I loved I am only now beginning to grapple with. I also envied and for a while hated him but my knowledge of the price he paid makes it impossible for those feelings to last. And there is a coldness that slows my blood at the thought that he might still be paying it.

He had a flat in a Victorian house in Kennington, down one of those dirty Lambeth streets that for decades were described as coming up but which never quite seemed to arrive. I shared a flat with two other teachers in a modern block not far away. Edward was not a teacher, of course; from the start, he was to be a great writer. He never actually said as much but the knowledge of it somehow spread around him like a personal aura so that no one ever thought of him as anything else. Perhaps we assumed that you became a great writer simply by being intent on it and by keeping at it until your greatness became apparent. Perhaps even Edward assumed it. After all, the intellectual world is credulous enough to take many of us at our own evaluations and people can become very successful just by believing in themselves and so persuading everyone else. I think Edward did believe in himself.

He was lucky in that he had money from his father, so that while working on his first novel he didn’t have to get a regular job but could do freelance reviewing, which was as useful for getting his name known as for what it earned. In those days there was nothing to distinguish him from the shoals of Eng. Lit. graduates who feed off the scraps of London publishing and journalism. The more fortunate and determined grow into big enough fish to join the literati and become editors, columnists, presenters and, usually in a small way, writers. They think that being literary is a preliminary to writing good books, until time finds them out. But, after a while, it became evident that there was some difference between Edward and the others. He did not seem to seek precisely what they sought, or as they sought. He was not a great attender of literary parties, did little to cultivate influential people, and once turned down the chance to write a trial television script, an act of apparent self-neglect that scandalized his acquaintances. Without actually saying so, he gave the impression of an integrity that needed preserving, of