01/15/2024
The Gullah culture and folk beliefs of South Carolina and Georgia’s Sea Islands serve as the foundation for this wobbly contemporary Southern gothic from Van Alst (The Longest Street in the World). Events begin innocently enough when Dr. Van Vierlans, a Native American academic and fiction writer, accepts the invitation of Elizabeth Morganstern, a white plantation owner on Coosaw Island, to read from his work on local shell rings as ancestral sites of power. Though relatively fluent in the Gullah tongue, Van Vierlans proves ill-informed about the history of the Morganstern plantation and how it intertwines with the superstitions of Elizabeth’s Gullah servants. Over the course of one booze-soaked evening, Van Vierlans discovers that he has been not so much invited to the island as lured there to play a role in an arcane ritual. Van Alst’s colorful descriptions of the setting conjure a fantastic atmosphere that makes the extraordinary seem possible, but several plot threads go underdeveloped, resulting in a whole that feels mashed together from independently conceived ideas. Still, fans of the macabre will enjoy this tale for its unique perspective on an underrepresented culture and its legends. (Mar.)
Very cool.” —Stephen Graham Jones, NYT best-selling author of My Heart is a Chainsaw and The Only Good Indians
“A cinematic swirl of bourbon, blood-soaked soil, and bad magic.” —Jeremy Robert Johnson, award-winning author of The Loop and Skullcrack City
“Creepy, atmospheric, and darkly funny.” —Sonora Taylor, award-winning author of Little Paranoias: Stories and Seeing Things
"Mixing the profane and sacred with a sledgehammer finish."—Kimberly Davis Basso, author of Next Door
Rich with legend and lore, Theodore C. Van Alst’s Pour One for the Devil is a Gothic horror tale in which our sinister home radiates with superstition.”
From page one, Van Alst Jr.'s Pour One for the Devil hit all the right notes—a slowly mounting dread, secrets stacked upon secrets, and an ending that at first shocked me and then, after I sat with it a bit, felt inevitable. It's got all the beautiful, heartbreaking touchstones of a truly harrowing gothic tale.”
Creepy, atmospheric, and darkly funny, Pour One for the Devil has all the trappings of a fine Southern Gothic tale infused with the incomparable wit and dark imaginings of Van Alst. I greatly enjoyed this tale.”
Pour One for the Devil is dangerous and delicious, hitting all the right notes. Straightforward at first sip, the story deepens as you take it in, mixing the profane and sacred with a sledgehammer finish. Best keep your wits about you. What should be a simple visit by an academic to a Carolina island historical society becomes a gothic nightmare with a Chicago twist. Another first rate read from Van Alst, who pours himself into the prose, intoxicating and thick with chills.”
Pour One for the Devil is the first Indigenous Southern Gothic work I’ve let spill into my soul. Slick and soothing down the hatch, Van Alst’s writing will at first burn your tongue, make you curse for being so good, and entice you to slam your glass down and demand another round.”
Very cool. Puts me in mind of Machado’s The Resident.”
Pour One for the Devil dives headlong into all the liquor, lies, and long-simmering moral horrors one could hope for from a Southern Gothic, and finds unique gravity in its lively layering of American atrocity. Van Alst Jr.’s investigator encounters a cinematic swirl of bourbon, blood-soaked soil, and bad magic as he sinks deeper into the eldritch rituals of a sweltering southern island where the Devil is only one of the players, and every last soul is up for grabs.”
