The Devil's Cat
by William W. Johnstone

Spinning, Tony gripped the broom handle as he would a baseball bat and swung with all his strength — which was considerable. Broom handle came in contact with ass and Jolevare squalled in pain, the blow knocking him off the concrete and back into the rain.

"You wimp!" Jolevare yelled.

—"The Devil's Cat"

Who is it who can seamlessly weld the raw athleticsm of Hemingway with the depth and erudition of Umberto Eco? As the passage above would indicate to even a casual literature buff, author William W. Johnstone is capable of miraculous feats of description and may very well be one of the leading heirs to the literary tradition of the 20th century.

Johnstone scholars, many of whom have built impressive careers studying his later works (including "The Devil's Heart" and "The Devil's Touch") are only now beginning to turn their analytical powers toward his first book, "The Devil's Cat." Oft overlooked (it was once derided by Princeton's Calvin Ulsworth as "delightful juvenilia, but juvenilia nonetheless"), "The Devil's Cat" is making a surprising comeback in literary circles.

Not only does the evil of "The Devil's Cat" creep in on little cat feet (as the cover so cleverly observes) but so does its substantial emotional power. Johnstone manages, with his character Walt Davis, to introduce a dark antihero with a disturbingly Nabokovian aura. Readers traditionally shudder at his introduction:

And as suddenly as the storm appeared, the people of Becancour took to their homes and stayed there.

Well ... almost everybody.

Walt Davis crouched naked under a house near the old Dorgenois mansion. He was quite comfortable despite his nakedness. He was surrounded by cats. The silent felines kept him quite warm and dry.

What exactly is it that naked Walt Davis is thinking, as he lies under a house, covered by cats? What delicious leap of logic did Johnstone make when he decided that cats don't get all soaking wet and smelly when you hose them down with a rainstorm? This we never find out, but the remainder of the chapter is pregnant with the question, and the reader is led to remember how romantic it must have once been for the settlers of the Old West to tuck themselves under their newly-built frontier homes and just roll around in fresh, American-grown prairie cats.

The emergence of the Johnstonian anti-hero will be one of the principal topics of discussion this February, when the fifth annual Johnstone Convocation convenes in New Haven. The Convocation, entitled "The Devil's Cat: Canonized or Reborn?" concentrates on Johnstone's first work, and its influence on modern literature.

The educated reader may wish to take this as a sign of the times, and re-explore "The Devil's Cat." Both deliciously subtle and intoxicatingly overwhelming, this early work has much to say for itself. In the words of the author himself:

Satan's own began squalling as the flames moved over his hideous body, finally covering his head. The sounds of his cooking brains bubbled throughout the clinic ...

Much as words of acclaim and praise are beginning to bubble through the nation's lecture halls and coffee shops, in recognition of Johnstone's once overlooked masterwork. Three cheers for "The Devil's Cat" and William W. Johnstone!

— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)