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Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism
A riveting work of immersive nonfiction by a young, award-winning writer that begins with the story of a charismatic man—a Special Ops soldier who believes his PTSD is caused by demons—but becomes about the author’s obsession with the strange and mesmerizing world she encounters.
Jennifer Percy spent three years with a group of Christians in rural Georgia who performs exorcisms on the traumatized. Percy was brought to them by a special Ops soldier just back from Afghanistan, the lone survivor of his unit, which was lost during Operation Red Wings. He returned to Georgia and, struggling with PTSD and unable to integrate back into civilian life, considered suicide, until -- as a last resort -- he underwent an exorcism. After experiencing relief, he set out on a mission to bring soldiers from across America to Georgia for a similar deliverance.
In the tradition of Dennis Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain, Demon Camp is the strange and riveting tale of Percy’s journey into a world she is fascinated by, suspicious of, sympathetic to, and a world she becomes a part of. As she struggles to understand this soldier’s homecoming she crosses the line between journalist and participant, becoming exorcised herself.
This is a book about being haunted -- about the demons in and outside of us. It is about a soldier looking for atonement in a world that is offering none -- an agnostic who is obsessed with an exorcist. It is a mesmerizing account of how people reconcile faith and trauma and a brilliant and passionate work that heralds the arrival of a brave, new talent.
Jennifer Percy spent three years with a group of Christians in rural Georgia who performs exorcisms on the traumatized. Percy was brought to them by a special Ops soldier just back from Afghanistan, the lone survivor of his unit, which was lost during Operation Red Wings. He returned to Georgia and, struggling with PTSD and unable to integrate back into civilian life, considered suicide, until -- as a last resort -- he underwent an exorcism. After experiencing relief, he set out on a mission to bring soldiers from across America to Georgia for a similar deliverance.
In the tradition of Dennis Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain, Demon Camp is the strange and riveting tale of Percy’s journey into a world she is fascinated by, suspicious of, sympathetic to, and a world she becomes a part of. As she struggles to understand this soldier’s homecoming she crosses the line between journalist and participant, becoming exorcised herself.
This is a book about being haunted -- about the demons in and outside of us. It is about a soldier looking for atonement in a world that is offering none -- an agnostic who is obsessed with an exorcist. It is a mesmerizing account of how people reconcile faith and trauma and a brilliant and passionate work that heralds the arrival of a brave, new talent.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published May 14, 2013
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November 18, 2019
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greg loved this book.
loved it.
loved it so much he warned me that if i didn't like it, we would no longer be friends.
no pressure, right? so i might be at risk of losing a friend here, but i have to say, while i liked this book, i do not feel the same love greg felt for it.
it's a nonfiction account of jennifer percy (Benjamin Percy's sister) and the time she spent with a special ops soldier named caleb daniels, back from afghanistan, who was either suffering from severe ptsd or, as he claimed, the victim of a demon called "the black thing" or "the destroyer." after his experiences in the war, which were horrifying, harrowing and gruesome, he sees and speaks to the dead members of his unit, and sees apparitions attached to other living, people. but even more eerily, even before his friends all died, he was having premonitions - vivid dreams about what would happen to them. what did happen to them. dreams that other soldiers were also having. spooky, spooky.
war happens, things blow up, people die. caleb is spared. but there is lasting damage to his psyche.
so percy goes to georgia to meet up and interview caleb. while there, at caleb's insistence, she also goes to a christian demon exorcism camp where she undergoes a procedure, a "deliverance" to rid herself of the demons caleb sees on her, and encounters other people who believe themselves to be afflicted with demons.
it's a fascinating topic, but a strange way of telling the story. it is not a journalistic account - the whole thing reads like borderline stream-of-consciousness, where time passes in a very unclear way - this whole thing took place over the course of three years, but there is no indication of that except in the flap copy - and there are just anecdotes out of context with strange details:
When Caleb finally told Allyson about his plans to assess, she threatened divorce, telling him that those were the guys who went to hotel rooms and cheated on their wives. Caleb assessed anyway. When he came home, Allyson wouldn't talk to him. He found his uniform in the trash, buried in a snowfall of tissues. Dog hair and garbage all over the floor. There were no paper towels.
you see what i mean? percy is recounting the stories that caleb is telling her, but why that detail about the paper towels? why does caleb even mention that, and why does percy document it? the book is filled with things like this, and they stick out in the mind.
a generous me would say that it is meant to mirror the thought processes of someone who has been fragmented by their war experiences, but it doesn't read like that, not really. it reads literary, not jumbled. everything is heightened with this storyteller's glaze that makes it seem contrived. the first half is more of a tonal piece than anything substantial, and it reads like fiction because of both those jarring details and the mode of delivery.
It's a Saturday, and by late afternoon all fifteen grandkids, ranging from two months to nine years, are in the yard, jumping on the trampoline, screaming, running naked. One pisses on the ground, facing me, as close as possible without hitting my feet. Another picks ants out of the portable swimming pool and eats them. A redheaded nine-year-old named Amaryllis comes up to me and opens her mouth. I feed her.
you see what i mean2? she's a good writer, she has an interesting voice, a good eye for detail and an expressive style:
Portal, Georgia, which lies between Statesboro and Swainsboro, has 562 people, one streetlight, one restaurant called Pepper Jack's, and a beauty pageant for infants called Baby Miss Turpentine. Dead armadillos are all over the road, shining dull the way I imagine diamonds look when pulled from the earth.
but these flourishes don't, for me, seem to contribute to the ostensible story.
there isn't a strong sense of when any of these stories are talking place, and you can only place the events in the narrative by what particular woman caleb is with at the time, where he is living, and with whom. there is a lot of back and forth, stories overlapping and repetition. the phrase where the layer between heaven and earth is very thin is used three times to describe a particular place, for example. and she mentions that she and caleb are eating cheese enchiladas twice when relating a conversation that takes place over those enchiladas; a conversation interrupted by several chapters.
as she gets more deeply involved in the lives of these people, she starts having her own nightmares and visions and it gets a little wacky towards the end. two words: bats. bats.
everything in this book reads surreal, but particularly towards the end, where it is very easy to forget that this is nonfiction.
the women in his life are fucked up
Caleb took her number and called her on Monday and on Tuesday they started dating.
The next time Caleb deployed, he gave Krissy a key to his apartment so she could look after it. When he came home, he found a new bedspread, new lace curtains for the windows. Framed photos of them hung on the wall. He found a diamond engagement ring in his shirt drawer. She'd used his credit card to buy it. "Don't you want to be with me?" she said.
and
"While I was deployed," he said, "the dog got pregnant and miscarried. The miscarried puppies were in a pile on the floor and Allyson had to call me in Iraq to ask what to do. I told her to put the dead dogs in the trash, but she wouldn't do it. When I got home, the dead dogs were still in the house."
the soldiers are fucked up
Once he was running thirty miles during a training exercise with a broken foot, limping, unsure if he could finish, The sergeant came up to him, handed him a thirty-pound weight from his rucksack, and asked Caleb to drop it on his foot. The sergeant's foot. "Now I got a broke foot too," the sergeant said. They continued on their run.
caleb is fucked up
Everywhere Caleb went he heard its voice. One time, he was in the kitchen, thinking about lunch. Ryan was sitting on the couch. "Tacos or burritos?" Caleb asked.
Fuck you, Ryan said, this is war.
"Ryan, what the fuck are you talking about?"
"Dude, I want tacos."
It happened over and over again. In the end you aren't going to win, said the voice coming out of Ryan.
the takeaway from this is: war will fuck you up.
oddly enough, it gets more interesting once she steps back from the quirky "characters" - when she interviews a neuropsychologist about ptsd, when the parallels between military service and the scarier bits of bible are made, when the horrifying statistics regarding soldier suicides after war are tallied up. the way families treat their sons' widows, the way the government treats families, the way vets treat… everyone else. it's all shocking and horrible.
i don't know. there are a lot of interesting things in this book, but i'm left confused about what this book actually is. i would love to read something else by her, because i like a lot of what she does here, i am just left a little off-balance. which may be the point.
but i'm gonna miss greg. he was a good friend.
come to my blog!
greg loved this book.
loved it.
loved it so much he warned me that if i didn't like it, we would no longer be friends.
no pressure, right? so i might be at risk of losing a friend here, but i have to say, while i liked this book, i do not feel the same love greg felt for it.
it's a nonfiction account of jennifer percy (Benjamin Percy's sister) and the time she spent with a special ops soldier named caleb daniels, back from afghanistan, who was either suffering from severe ptsd or, as he claimed, the victim of a demon called "the black thing" or "the destroyer." after his experiences in the war, which were horrifying, harrowing and gruesome, he sees and speaks to the dead members of his unit, and sees apparitions attached to other living, people. but even more eerily, even before his friends all died, he was having premonitions - vivid dreams about what would happen to them. what did happen to them. dreams that other soldiers were also having. spooky, spooky.
war happens, things blow up, people die. caleb is spared. but there is lasting damage to his psyche.
so percy goes to georgia to meet up and interview caleb. while there, at caleb's insistence, she also goes to a christian demon exorcism camp where she undergoes a procedure, a "deliverance" to rid herself of the demons caleb sees on her, and encounters other people who believe themselves to be afflicted with demons.
it's a fascinating topic, but a strange way of telling the story. it is not a journalistic account - the whole thing reads like borderline stream-of-consciousness, where time passes in a very unclear way - this whole thing took place over the course of three years, but there is no indication of that except in the flap copy - and there are just anecdotes out of context with strange details:
When Caleb finally told Allyson about his plans to assess, she threatened divorce, telling him that those were the guys who went to hotel rooms and cheated on their wives. Caleb assessed anyway. When he came home, Allyson wouldn't talk to him. He found his uniform in the trash, buried in a snowfall of tissues. Dog hair and garbage all over the floor. There were no paper towels.
you see what i mean? percy is recounting the stories that caleb is telling her, but why that detail about the paper towels? why does caleb even mention that, and why does percy document it? the book is filled with things like this, and they stick out in the mind.
a generous me would say that it is meant to mirror the thought processes of someone who has been fragmented by their war experiences, but it doesn't read like that, not really. it reads literary, not jumbled. everything is heightened with this storyteller's glaze that makes it seem contrived. the first half is more of a tonal piece than anything substantial, and it reads like fiction because of both those jarring details and the mode of delivery.
It's a Saturday, and by late afternoon all fifteen grandkids, ranging from two months to nine years, are in the yard, jumping on the trampoline, screaming, running naked. One pisses on the ground, facing me, as close as possible without hitting my feet. Another picks ants out of the portable swimming pool and eats them. A redheaded nine-year-old named Amaryllis comes up to me and opens her mouth. I feed her.
you see what i mean2? she's a good writer, she has an interesting voice, a good eye for detail and an expressive style:
Portal, Georgia, which lies between Statesboro and Swainsboro, has 562 people, one streetlight, one restaurant called Pepper Jack's, and a beauty pageant for infants called Baby Miss Turpentine. Dead armadillos are all over the road, shining dull the way I imagine diamonds look when pulled from the earth.
but these flourishes don't, for me, seem to contribute to the ostensible story.
there isn't a strong sense of when any of these stories are talking place, and you can only place the events in the narrative by what particular woman caleb is with at the time, where he is living, and with whom. there is a lot of back and forth, stories overlapping and repetition. the phrase where the layer between heaven and earth is very thin is used three times to describe a particular place, for example. and she mentions that she and caleb are eating cheese enchiladas twice when relating a conversation that takes place over those enchiladas; a conversation interrupted by several chapters.
as she gets more deeply involved in the lives of these people, she starts having her own nightmares and visions and it gets a little wacky towards the end. two words: bats. bats.
everything in this book reads surreal, but particularly towards the end, where it is very easy to forget that this is nonfiction.
the women in his life are fucked up
Caleb took her number and called her on Monday and on Tuesday they started dating.
The next time Caleb deployed, he gave Krissy a key to his apartment so she could look after it. When he came home, he found a new bedspread, new lace curtains for the windows. Framed photos of them hung on the wall. He found a diamond engagement ring in his shirt drawer. She'd used his credit card to buy it. "Don't you want to be with me?" she said.
and
"While I was deployed," he said, "the dog got pregnant and miscarried. The miscarried puppies were in a pile on the floor and Allyson had to call me in Iraq to ask what to do. I told her to put the dead dogs in the trash, but she wouldn't do it. When I got home, the dead dogs were still in the house."
the soldiers are fucked up
Once he was running thirty miles during a training exercise with a broken foot, limping, unsure if he could finish, The sergeant came up to him, handed him a thirty-pound weight from his rucksack, and asked Caleb to drop it on his foot. The sergeant's foot. "Now I got a broke foot too," the sergeant said. They continued on their run.
caleb is fucked up
Everywhere Caleb went he heard its voice. One time, he was in the kitchen, thinking about lunch. Ryan was sitting on the couch. "Tacos or burritos?" Caleb asked.
Fuck you, Ryan said, this is war.
"Ryan, what the fuck are you talking about?"
"Dude, I want tacos."
It happened over and over again. In the end you aren't going to win, said the voice coming out of Ryan.
the takeaway from this is: war will fuck you up.
oddly enough, it gets more interesting once she steps back from the quirky "characters" - when she interviews a neuropsychologist about ptsd, when the parallels between military service and the scarier bits of bible are made, when the horrifying statistics regarding soldier suicides after war are tallied up. the way families treat their sons' widows, the way the government treats families, the way vets treat… everyone else. it's all shocking and horrible.
i don't know. there are a lot of interesting things in this book, but i'm left confused about what this book actually is. i would love to read something else by her, because i like a lot of what she does here, i am just left a little off-balance. which may be the point.
but i'm gonna miss greg. he was a good friend.
come to my blog!
January 21, 2014
Until a few months ago I'm pretty sure that I had avoided reading any books about the recent war in Middle East. Then I read the Kevin Powers book, which was very very good even though I never did get around to reviewing it—and then boom, it seemed like I was reading lots of things about soldiers, life in Iraq during wartime, and other things to do with relatively recent current events. It's been a relative blessing in terms of literature, most of the things I've read have been quite good.
Demon Camp might be my favorite one, though. When I first saw this book I jumped all over it. Benjamin Percy's sister. War. Fringe Christian sects. Let me at it.
One, this is non-fiction. I realize I should say that because this might sound like the makings of a novel, and I'm not really known for reviewing much non-fiction.
Jennifer Percy started what would be this book as a journalist looking into why so many ex-soldiers were killing themselves once they were back home.
Her investigation led her to the ex-Special Operations solider who believed that he had been possessed through his military service and that only after he underwent an exorcism was he freed from the demons that had been haunting him since he returned war. He believed that he wasn't the he wasn't alone, and that the high levels of fatal PTSD were caused by this. So, he was on a mission to bring deliverance to his fellow veterans.
This book is his story, why he joined the Army, what brought him to become a Special Ops member and what happened to him in the Middle East and since his deployment ended. By all accounts he should have been dead. He was part of a helicopter crew that inserted and removed special forces type units. His helicopter was one of the ones sent in to get the Navy SEALS out of Operation Red Wing (the basis for Lone Survivor). His helicopter was the one blown out of the sky. He would have died with the rest of his crew if at the last minute one of his superiors hadn't pulled him off the helicopter and taken his place.
Of course in the framework of believing that you are on a mission to help bring deliverance to other soldiers this is a sign that the hand of God had saved you for something more.
For three years Percy involves herself in his life. She interviews and travels with him extensively. She stays with him in rural Georgia with the family that had performed the exorcism on him, and she undergoes an exorcism herself.
Percy goes into the story as the kind of skeptic you'd imagine most of us would be at hearing about this man's mission. Possessed by demons? Exorcism? Oh ok, sure thing there buddy. But as she spends more time in this guys world things start to get kind of, well weird—all culminating in a scene at the end of the book which might have been one of the freakiest things I've ever read that was purportedly to be true and written by someone who is a total skeptic about all the things going on around her.
This is the current book I'm trying to push into anyone's hands that I know and telling them to read it. It's so good, but I do have a soft spot in my interests for wacky Christian sects and things like backwoods snack handling and exorcisms.
Sadly, Barnes and Noble has decided to shelve this book in the Christian Life (living, inspiration, whatever we are calling it these days) section, which makes me (and I think Jesus, too) cry. I'm really believe that if people give this book a chance they are going to like it, but I don't think the customer who shops that section is going to be all that interested in a skeptical take on demonic possession and war, and anyone who would be drawn to this style of writing Jennifer Percy engages in probably would never venture to find this book shelved between Joel Olsteen and Joseph Prince.
Demon Camp might be my favorite one, though. When I first saw this book I jumped all over it. Benjamin Percy's sister. War. Fringe Christian sects. Let me at it.
One, this is non-fiction. I realize I should say that because this might sound like the makings of a novel, and I'm not really known for reviewing much non-fiction.
Jennifer Percy started what would be this book as a journalist looking into why so many ex-soldiers were killing themselves once they were back home.
Her investigation led her to the ex-Special Operations solider who believed that he had been possessed through his military service and that only after he underwent an exorcism was he freed from the demons that had been haunting him since he returned war. He believed that he wasn't the he wasn't alone, and that the high levels of fatal PTSD were caused by this. So, he was on a mission to bring deliverance to his fellow veterans.
This book is his story, why he joined the Army, what brought him to become a Special Ops member and what happened to him in the Middle East and since his deployment ended. By all accounts he should have been dead. He was part of a helicopter crew that inserted and removed special forces type units. His helicopter was one of the ones sent in to get the Navy SEALS out of Operation Red Wing (the basis for Lone Survivor). His helicopter was the one blown out of the sky. He would have died with the rest of his crew if at the last minute one of his superiors hadn't pulled him off the helicopter and taken his place.
Of course in the framework of believing that you are on a mission to help bring deliverance to other soldiers this is a sign that the hand of God had saved you for something more.
For three years Percy involves herself in his life. She interviews and travels with him extensively. She stays with him in rural Georgia with the family that had performed the exorcism on him, and she undergoes an exorcism herself.
Percy goes into the story as the kind of skeptic you'd imagine most of us would be at hearing about this man's mission. Possessed by demons? Exorcism? Oh ok, sure thing there buddy. But as she spends more time in this guys world things start to get kind of, well weird—all culminating in a scene at the end of the book which might have been one of the freakiest things I've ever read that was purportedly to be true and written by someone who is a total skeptic about all the things going on around her.
This is the current book I'm trying to push into anyone's hands that I know and telling them to read it. It's so good, but I do have a soft spot in my interests for wacky Christian sects and things like backwoods snack handling and exorcisms.
Sadly, Barnes and Noble has decided to shelve this book in the Christian Life (living, inspiration, whatever we are calling it these days) section, which makes me (and I think Jesus, too) cry. I'm really believe that if people give this book a chance they are going to like it, but I don't think the customer who shops that section is going to be all that interested in a skeptical take on demonic possession and war, and anyone who would be drawn to this style of writing Jennifer Percy engages in probably would never venture to find this book shelved between Joel Olsteen and Joseph Prince.
September 5, 2020
Some funny parts actually. Kind of shocking that such subject matter as PTSD and the author finds ways to make you laugh. Some very sad stuff here too. Well written. Quick and easy read. I liked it. I didn't love it but it's worth reading. Some loved this book though so don't just take my word for it. You might end up loving it too. Definitely some interesting facts found within it's pages. True story of course.
February 25, 2014
This started out strong, interesting. The first part was about Caleb starting a career as a soldier and then becoming part of a special forces unit, which is hard core stuff, training for torture and the likes of that. Then his buddies from his unit die on a mission that he wasn't on, and it was like they all knew they were going to die, including Caleb because he had foretelling dreams about it. Percy has a fast, snippet-of-life technique that worked for this part, keeping the pace quick. But in the four parts that followed this technique didn't work. She visits Caleb's spiritual group, people who see demons and hold exorcisms. She quotes them spewing talk about demons and angels and just rambling. The last four parts of the book had a lot of people babbling, and Percy didn't examine anything deeper. She was very detached, I don't even know what she thought about this whole experience, except that maybe she thought they were all crazy because that's how her writing makes them come off. I don't think she was the right person to meet this spiritual cult (or group--what have you). It was like she had no foundational knowledge of Christianity or even any personal beliefs (she never told any) so she had nothing to measure these people by; we just never knew what she was thinking. Once in a while she would throw in a fast fact or legend-has-it tidbit about spiritual rituals of Native Americans or Ancient Greece, but this just added to the disjointed feel. The book description makes it seem like she gets immersed in this group, but no, she just...I don't want to say observes them because it was not well-observed, and she just ends by talking about PTSD; oh and she also tries to make it a metaphor for what's wrong with this country, saying that America has PTSD from something...I dunno. I think she was in over her head.
January 9, 2015
[Update: I changed my rating from 3 stars to 4 stars; I've recommended this book to several people, and although it isn't perfect, it's a book I'm very glad I read.]
I was so sure I'd like this book; the subject matter is right up my alley, it has gotten good reviews from others, people I respect.
And I did enjoy it; the subject matter is, indeed, right up my alley, and this book describes the horrors of war and its aftermath for soldiers in a shocking but completely believable way.
Jennifer Percy writes of a lost young man, unlucky in love, Caleb Daniels, who finds his identity in the Marines, Special Ops; contrary to what we learn about his early life and his lousy-excuse-for-a-father's negative assessments of everything he does, Caleb has what it takes to complete the brutal levels of abuse (i.e., training) to become a part of Special Ops. Jennifer Percy spends a great deal of time with Caleb after his return from Afghanistan; Caleb, traumatized by the war, sees his dead buddies everywhere, becomes convinced that demons are stalking him, and eventually receives "deliverance" from a minister, the minister's extended family, and a cadre of followers who have also been "delivered."
The story itself really is fascinating, and I don't think the images or the gut-wrenching perspective of soldiers will leave me any time soon, but I'm sorry to say I just do not think this book is very well written.
It started, for me, on page 8 (the story begins on page 7, so it didn't bode well). It's a long paragraph telling about how Caleb met Allyson when they were 16; one day Caleb promises to get her out of town, and one day (same paragraph) they are sitting on a tractor in the bean field and "Allyson told Caleb that while he'd been gone she'd starting seeing a classmate." Wait . . . gone?? Huh?? I re-read the paragraph a few times. In love . . . he's going to rescue her . . . while he was gone she'd been seeing someone. OK, so in the next paragraph it sort of circles back and tells us that Caleb left and worked "through harvest season into winter." I know that really good writers can pull this sort of thing off, but in good writing it's done in such a way that I'm not scratching my head wondering what's going on.
I mention that example, because it seemed to happen a lot in this book. Percy seems to enjoy being elliptical, as though that somehow translates to profundity, whereas I found it annoying. Only ten pages later, there's an account that mentions Caleb, and then goes into a long description of "an E-2, a low-ranking guy, just got in the army, hadn't been int he army even a year." Keeps talking about this "kid," and four paragraphs later you figure out that yes, it's Caleb. It just seemed like a tricky substitute for good writing.
Even when the writing is clear, it's painfully clear and declarative, with details that, again, to me, seem to yell: "Hey! This is profound!"
"She introduces herself as Pam. She's forty years old and she's 'the adopted child.' Pam followed the minister's family to Georgia from their previous home in upstate New York. She lives in Portal now. Her body spills from the chair. I hear her breathe. Some of her hair is curly and some straight. She kills ants with her feet." That evokes absolutely nothing in me except irritation. I am curled on my couch. I feel annoyed. My hair is brown. I wipe my nose.
Or: "The minister has four children and fourteen grandchildren. They all live in Portal. His oldest child lives a dirt road away. It's a Saturday, and by late afternoon all fifteen grandkids [wait -- am I missing something here again? is this something profound? is there a catch? is it just a typo?], ranging from two months to nine years, are in the yard. . . . One pisses on the ground, facing me, as close as possible without hitting my feet. Another picks ants out of the portable swimming pool and eats them. A redheaded nine-year-old named Amaryllis comes up to me and opens her mouth. I feed her."
You feed her. What do you feed her? Do you just happen to have chicken feed in your pocket? Does she really just walk over and open her mouth really wide? Why don't you examine her teeth?
Final example: maybe someone can explain this one to me: "She drags me to the fridge, away from the others, and gets really close to my face. It's covered in a thin patter of cream." So cream is tapping on the refrigerator? the other lady's face? Percy's face? I'd assume by the sentence structure that Percy's face is covered in a thin patter of cream, but what the heck? What is a "patter" of cream, and what is "it"? I'm the English teacher with a red pen: "Unclear."
So . . . I'm not sure who I'd recommend this book to. If you want good writing, try Salvation on Sand Mountain, written by a New Yorker author, about a similar foray into a zealously religious community and the deep effect it has on the writer.
If you are interested in the effects of war on the psyche and spirit, this is probably a great book to read; just don't expect stellar writing.
And, for the record, I think demons are probably as reasonable an explanation as PTSD, hysteria, shell-shock, or any other description of the trauma soldiers undergo in war. This book describes spiritual devastation and genuine attempts to exorcise that blackness from people's lives. Who really knows? Perhaps there are demons of war, and untold victims of those horrible entities.
I was so sure I'd like this book; the subject matter is right up my alley, it has gotten good reviews from others, people I respect.
And I did enjoy it; the subject matter is, indeed, right up my alley, and this book describes the horrors of war and its aftermath for soldiers in a shocking but completely believable way.
Jennifer Percy writes of a lost young man, unlucky in love, Caleb Daniels, who finds his identity in the Marines, Special Ops; contrary to what we learn about his early life and his lousy-excuse-for-a-father's negative assessments of everything he does, Caleb has what it takes to complete the brutal levels of abuse (i.e., training) to become a part of Special Ops. Jennifer Percy spends a great deal of time with Caleb after his return from Afghanistan; Caleb, traumatized by the war, sees his dead buddies everywhere, becomes convinced that demons are stalking him, and eventually receives "deliverance" from a minister, the minister's extended family, and a cadre of followers who have also been "delivered."
The story itself really is fascinating, and I don't think the images or the gut-wrenching perspective of soldiers will leave me any time soon, but I'm sorry to say I just do not think this book is very well written.
It started, for me, on page 8 (the story begins on page 7, so it didn't bode well). It's a long paragraph telling about how Caleb met Allyson when they were 16; one day Caleb promises to get her out of town, and one day (same paragraph) they are sitting on a tractor in the bean field and "Allyson told Caleb that while he'd been gone she'd starting seeing a classmate." Wait . . . gone?? Huh?? I re-read the paragraph a few times. In love . . . he's going to rescue her . . . while he was gone she'd been seeing someone. OK, so in the next paragraph it sort of circles back and tells us that Caleb left and worked "through harvest season into winter." I know that really good writers can pull this sort of thing off, but in good writing it's done in such a way that I'm not scratching my head wondering what's going on.
I mention that example, because it seemed to happen a lot in this book. Percy seems to enjoy being elliptical, as though that somehow translates to profundity, whereas I found it annoying. Only ten pages later, there's an account that mentions Caleb, and then goes into a long description of "an E-2, a low-ranking guy, just got in the army, hadn't been int he army even a year." Keeps talking about this "kid," and four paragraphs later you figure out that yes, it's Caleb. It just seemed like a tricky substitute for good writing.
Even when the writing is clear, it's painfully clear and declarative, with details that, again, to me, seem to yell: "Hey! This is profound!"
"She introduces herself as Pam. She's forty years old and she's 'the adopted child.' Pam followed the minister's family to Georgia from their previous home in upstate New York. She lives in Portal now. Her body spills from the chair. I hear her breathe. Some of her hair is curly and some straight. She kills ants with her feet." That evokes absolutely nothing in me except irritation. I am curled on my couch. I feel annoyed. My hair is brown. I wipe my nose.
Or: "The minister has four children and fourteen grandchildren. They all live in Portal. His oldest child lives a dirt road away. It's a Saturday, and by late afternoon all fifteen grandkids [wait -- am I missing something here again? is this something profound? is there a catch? is it just a typo?], ranging from two months to nine years, are in the yard. . . . One pisses on the ground, facing me, as close as possible without hitting my feet. Another picks ants out of the portable swimming pool and eats them. A redheaded nine-year-old named Amaryllis comes up to me and opens her mouth. I feed her."
You feed her. What do you feed her? Do you just happen to have chicken feed in your pocket? Does she really just walk over and open her mouth really wide? Why don't you examine her teeth?
Final example: maybe someone can explain this one to me: "She drags me to the fridge, away from the others, and gets really close to my face. It's covered in a thin patter of cream." So cream is tapping on the refrigerator? the other lady's face? Percy's face? I'd assume by the sentence structure that Percy's face is covered in a thin patter of cream, but what the heck? What is a "patter" of cream, and what is "it"? I'm the English teacher with a red pen: "Unclear."
So . . . I'm not sure who I'd recommend this book to. If you want good writing, try Salvation on Sand Mountain, written by a New Yorker author, about a similar foray into a zealously religious community and the deep effect it has on the writer.
If you are interested in the effects of war on the psyche and spirit, this is probably a great book to read; just don't expect stellar writing.
And, for the record, I think demons are probably as reasonable an explanation as PTSD, hysteria, shell-shock, or any other description of the trauma soldiers undergo in war. This book describes spiritual devastation and genuine attempts to exorcise that blackness from people's lives. Who really knows? Perhaps there are demons of war, and untold victims of those horrible entities.
November 13, 2014
This is really two completely separate books. The first book rates 5+ stars, while the second rates 2 stars. But that first part is so spectacularly good, that I would highly recommend you acquire the book just to read it.
The first book focuses on Caleb Daniels, a young man from Missouri who joined the military and became a Night Stalker. His story, from his time in Missouri to his time in the military to his service itself, is told in an absolutely stunning manner. I've seldom read such good writing on the topic, clear, precise, lyrical, and conveying so much more than the mere sum of the words. Percy is a gifted writer. I plan to reread this section just to admire and enjoy it again.
The second book focuses on the "Demon Camp," a religious group that exorcises demons from those possessed. I expected to like this part of the book, but found it to be just odd. First, because it has almost nothing to do with Daniels. Yes, he married into the minister's family, and yes, he claims that the group cast his PTSD-causing demon out. But that seems completely beside the point when reading this section. Daniels is essentially AWOL in it, and as a result it seems to have no coherent connection whatsoever to the first book. Second, I expected some sort of real analysis, some profound insight, a deeper understanding of this particular type of religious world. I expected this, especially, from the woman who wrote the first book. But there is none of that. This whole second part/book seems to be written by someone who is superfically seeing, but not noticing, absorbing, and evaluating. And what she sees is weird, boring, and vaguely repellant in a Jerry Springer kind of way. This isn't a knock on religion in general, just on the particular people depicted. I learned nothing from them, and I had no need to learn anything about them. Nothing about them made me believe for one fraction of a millisecond that they are the real deal (and I'm open minded, so I was hoping).
So, please, read about Caleb, but stop at that.
The first book focuses on Caleb Daniels, a young man from Missouri who joined the military and became a Night Stalker. His story, from his time in Missouri to his time in the military to his service itself, is told in an absolutely stunning manner. I've seldom read such good writing on the topic, clear, precise, lyrical, and conveying so much more than the mere sum of the words. Percy is a gifted writer. I plan to reread this section just to admire and enjoy it again.
The second book focuses on the "Demon Camp," a religious group that exorcises demons from those possessed. I expected to like this part of the book, but found it to be just odd. First, because it has almost nothing to do with Daniels. Yes, he married into the minister's family, and yes, he claims that the group cast his PTSD-causing demon out. But that seems completely beside the point when reading this section. Daniels is essentially AWOL in it, and as a result it seems to have no coherent connection whatsoever to the first book. Second, I expected some sort of real analysis, some profound insight, a deeper understanding of this particular type of religious world. I expected this, especially, from the woman who wrote the first book. But there is none of that. This whole second part/book seems to be written by someone who is superfically seeing, but not noticing, absorbing, and evaluating. And what she sees is weird, boring, and vaguely repellant in a Jerry Springer kind of way. This isn't a knock on religion in general, just on the particular people depicted. I learned nothing from them, and I had no need to learn anything about them. Nothing about them made me believe for one fraction of a millisecond that they are the real deal (and I'm open minded, so I was hoping).
So, please, read about Caleb, but stop at that.
February 16, 2015
This book was weird, weird, WEIRD! I picked it up because I was interested to learn about the Demon Camp that purports to free Veterans from their PTSD symptoms. It started out promising, with the author tracking down those who have started the "camp" and their back-story. But the book quickly devolves into a fever dream of epic proportions. The author failed to maintain a journalistic distance from her subjects and became far too entangled in the camp to maintain objectivity.
If anything, this book is an excellent example of mind-control and the power of belief. The members of demon camp are so good at it, that I am convinced that they eroded the author's sanity and foundation in reality. I failed to see any actual healing happening at Demon Camp. Instead they seemed to transfer their symptoms into a lifelong battle against literal demons and forces of darkness. They found a way to keep the solders in a war for their entire lifetime. It is sick, and veterans should be warned against it. For that reason alone, I would encourage Veterans to read "Demon Camp."
If anything, this book is an excellent example of mind-control and the power of belief. The members of demon camp are so good at it, that I am convinced that they eroded the author's sanity and foundation in reality. I failed to see any actual healing happening at Demon Camp. Instead they seemed to transfer their symptoms into a lifelong battle against literal demons and forces of darkness. They found a way to keep the solders in a war for their entire lifetime. It is sick, and veterans should be warned against it. For that reason alone, I would encourage Veterans to read "Demon Camp."
July 29, 2016
Truth be told, I found this book pretty confounding. It is ostensibly about PTSD, how we've failed (and continue to fail) to understand what it really is, what it does to the afflicted, and how--if possible--it can be overcome. The author stumbles onto a good metaphor for PTSD: demons. The study of PTSD becomes demonology; its cure "deliverance." So far, so good.
PTSD is likely an affective response to theodicy. That is, once you've really witnessed evil, perhaps even perpetrated it, how do you cope with that experience--that fact--about yourself? Some ecstatic protestant sects understandably treat it as a theological problem. Exorcism.
But yet there's something off about this book. In a bad way. It's not creepy-bad, just disappointing-bad. So much more could have been done exploring the metaphor, teasing it out, exploiting it! Percy could have exhausted the subject in the way that those living with PTSD experience exhaustion. This might have been a good, even excellent, performance from both a writerly and non-fiction perspective. However, Percy over-performs when she mistakes metaphor for metonym; slipping from observer into participant in the ritual of "deliverance." There's very little traction to save her from (credible) accusations of narcissism; she may be haunted by the trauma she hears about, but it is crass of her to presume that her haunting resembles anything like the haunting of the soldiers who are her "subjects."
Percy is so on the fence about the validity of the religious experience that it makes her deaf to the necessity of it. But even placebos serve a purpose.
PTSD is likely an affective response to theodicy. That is, once you've really witnessed evil, perhaps even perpetrated it, how do you cope with that experience--that fact--about yourself? Some ecstatic protestant sects understandably treat it as a theological problem. Exorcism.
But yet there's something off about this book. In a bad way. It's not creepy-bad, just disappointing-bad. So much more could have been done exploring the metaphor, teasing it out, exploiting it! Percy could have exhausted the subject in the way that those living with PTSD experience exhaustion. This might have been a good, even excellent, performance from both a writerly and non-fiction perspective. However, Percy over-performs when she mistakes metaphor for metonym; slipping from observer into participant in the ritual of "deliverance." There's very little traction to save her from (credible) accusations of narcissism; she may be haunted by the trauma she hears about, but it is crass of her to presume that her haunting resembles anything like the haunting of the soldiers who are her "subjects."
Percy is so on the fence about the validity of the religious experience that it makes her deaf to the necessity of it. But even placebos serve a purpose.
January 3, 2019
Jennifer Percy received a fellowship to write about soldiers returning from Iraq/Afghanistan, PTSD, and suicide. That path led her on a 3 year odyssey among Pentecostal exorcists in rural Georgia. It's weird. Weird weird. The New York Times' review calls it "a visceral, seductive weird," but I think that dresses this WTF up fancier that it needs to be. It begins as a lone survivor story that no one makes movies about then devolves into a story that is all about her and her personal experiences with Pentecostals. Percy spends significant time making not so subtle hints on the collective American need (the general "they") to sweep returning soldier issues under a rug but shifts her own focus from soldier issues to a book about herself. Irony? Hypocrisy? As much as I took issue with that, I didn't hate this book. I didn't like it, nor would I recommend it. Yet, the unique writing style and desire to see what happens kept me reading until the end.
February 8, 2015
Despite the fact that I'm ambivalent toward Gonzo Journalism, I came to _Demon Camp_ expecting to love it given the author's pedigree and training, all the glowing reviews I'd read beforehand, and the copious number of exuberant blurbs provided in the opening pages and on the back cover of the edition I read. And I did enjoy much about the book. Percy does a terrific job of observing & reporting on both Caleb Daniels, a U.S. veteran who suffers from PTSD after a tour as an elite helicopter crewman in Afghanistan, and on the leader and congregants of an evangelical “Biblical Institute” in Portal, Georgia who specialize in exorcising supplicants’ personal demons. She makes an outstanding observation in pointing out that the high volume of veterans suffering from PTSD, the tragic number of them who commit suicide, the Army & U.S. government’s torpor in trying effectively to address the problem, and the prevalence of a superstitious strain of rural Christian belief are all symptoms of an alarming and possible fatal cultural illness in American society.
I’ve read all the reviews posted in Goodreads and was surprised by what some reviewers took issue with. One criticism was that the narrative of the reporting, especially during the first part of the book that tells Caleb’s background, is disjointed, out of order, and doesn’t often make sense. That criticism is easily discounted, though, by pointing out that Percy reported the story as Caleb told it to her. The manner in which it was presented is evidence of Caleb’s disjointed and disordered mind, of his unmoored life, not of Percy’s ability as a storyteller. A second criticism I found baseless was that of reviewers who found the actions of children and other residents of Portal, especially members of the evangelical exorcist pastor’s extended family, to be incomprehensible, nonsensical, and probably figments of the author’s imagination. As a longtime resident of the American South and someone who in his career works daily with impoverished members of a rural county, I can attest to the utter believability of the filthy conditions those people endure and of the tendency of children to pee, unashamed, in their yard or to pick ants up off the ground and eat them. I can attest to the high numbers of evangelical fundamentalists in impoverished areas who fully believe in the ongoing daily spiritual warfare waged on earth between Satan, his demons, and flawed but committed, intrepid believers who are convinced they are doing God’s will. For those critics who found these aspects of the story to be unbelievable, I feel pity, for this is the reality rather than something Percy invented or embellished the better to sell books. Finally, the criticism that Percy allowed herself to be drawn into the story, to succumb to the superstition in which she had immersed herself, and to voice her concerns that maybe she was, in fact, tormented by a demon is not a valid one either. Percy is writing in the tradition of Gonzo journalism, which has always proudly proclaimed itself to be an entirely subjective method of reporting as opposed to objective. And how can we blame Percy if she did succumb, briefly, to seemingly aberrant superstitious beliefs? Is there not sufficient evidence in the historical record to show that, over the millennia of recorded experience, countless numbers of charismatic individuals have convinced even savvy auditors to believe in things they would not ordinarily have believed, to commit acts or engage in activities that, in a more sound frame of mind, they would not have?
In the end, what kept me from rating _Demon Camp_ 3 or 4 stars was not the story and the conclusions Percy seems to wish readers to draw. I deeply enjoyed her message and her honest, accurate portrayal of the situation on the ground. The two things that most disappointed me, and that I consider to be fatal flaws in the writing of someone who by training and profession should know better, is the frequency with which Percy uses sentence fragments, often dropping initial nouns and pronouns, in the body of her narrative. It’s one thing to do so in dialogue, especially if an individual has the bad habit of speaking in such a manner, but to do so in the narrative, to do so as often as Percy does, is distracting, annoying, and evidence of authorial laziness. Finally, what disappointed me even more than that, is that Percy or her editor may have been derelict in fact-checking the details of the story. At one point in the story, a popular patriotic song comes on the radio when Percy is riding along with Caleb, but Percy misidentifies the singer of the song in a manner that makes clear that either she didn’t bother to check her facts or her editor didn’t bother to go behind SpellCheck. In my opinion, that calls into question the accuracy of an awful lot of the data presented in the book as factual. If the author couldn’t get the seemingly insignificant fact of the name of a singer right, what facts of greater importance may not have been properly verified as well?
I’ve read all the reviews posted in Goodreads and was surprised by what some reviewers took issue with. One criticism was that the narrative of the reporting, especially during the first part of the book that tells Caleb’s background, is disjointed, out of order, and doesn’t often make sense. That criticism is easily discounted, though, by pointing out that Percy reported the story as Caleb told it to her. The manner in which it was presented is evidence of Caleb’s disjointed and disordered mind, of his unmoored life, not of Percy’s ability as a storyteller. A second criticism I found baseless was that of reviewers who found the actions of children and other residents of Portal, especially members of the evangelical exorcist pastor’s extended family, to be incomprehensible, nonsensical, and probably figments of the author’s imagination. As a longtime resident of the American South and someone who in his career works daily with impoverished members of a rural county, I can attest to the utter believability of the filthy conditions those people endure and of the tendency of children to pee, unashamed, in their yard or to pick ants up off the ground and eat them. I can attest to the high numbers of evangelical fundamentalists in impoverished areas who fully believe in the ongoing daily spiritual warfare waged on earth between Satan, his demons, and flawed but committed, intrepid believers who are convinced they are doing God’s will. For those critics who found these aspects of the story to be unbelievable, I feel pity, for this is the reality rather than something Percy invented or embellished the better to sell books. Finally, the criticism that Percy allowed herself to be drawn into the story, to succumb to the superstition in which she had immersed herself, and to voice her concerns that maybe she was, in fact, tormented by a demon is not a valid one either. Percy is writing in the tradition of Gonzo journalism, which has always proudly proclaimed itself to be an entirely subjective method of reporting as opposed to objective. And how can we blame Percy if she did succumb, briefly, to seemingly aberrant superstitious beliefs? Is there not sufficient evidence in the historical record to show that, over the millennia of recorded experience, countless numbers of charismatic individuals have convinced even savvy auditors to believe in things they would not ordinarily have believed, to commit acts or engage in activities that, in a more sound frame of mind, they would not have?
In the end, what kept me from rating _Demon Camp_ 3 or 4 stars was not the story and the conclusions Percy seems to wish readers to draw. I deeply enjoyed her message and her honest, accurate portrayal of the situation on the ground. The two things that most disappointed me, and that I consider to be fatal flaws in the writing of someone who by training and profession should know better, is the frequency with which Percy uses sentence fragments, often dropping initial nouns and pronouns, in the body of her narrative. It’s one thing to do so in dialogue, especially if an individual has the bad habit of speaking in such a manner, but to do so in the narrative, to do so as often as Percy does, is distracting, annoying, and evidence of authorial laziness. Finally, what disappointed me even more than that, is that Percy or her editor may have been derelict in fact-checking the details of the story. At one point in the story, a popular patriotic song comes on the radio when Percy is riding along with Caleb, but Percy misidentifies the singer of the song in a manner that makes clear that either she didn’t bother to check her facts or her editor didn’t bother to go behind SpellCheck. In my opinion, that calls into question the accuracy of an awful lot of the data presented in the book as factual. If the author couldn’t get the seemingly insignificant fact of the name of a singer right, what facts of greater importance may not have been properly verified as well?
January 17, 2014
The story starts with a bang. The first part, "War Dreams," sweeps through Caleb's life. I couldn't put the book down. But I had to put the book down when the section ended because it was all too much: the foreshadowing sad choices, kids looking for purpose in war. But we were off and I was excited about where this book would take me. However, the second part, when the author enters the scene, I read with interest at first and then I was just confused. What was the author thinking? There was no interpretation, just Caleb talking about his demons and his quest to save soldiers from killing themselves and Percy along for the ride. I needed grounding. Right when I was starting to give up on this book and wondered if it would end up being a report for liberals to recount at parties with their friends, Percy pulls through.
The change starts with Percy's meeting with Kristina, Kip's old girlfriend. From there Percy shifts gears and widens her lens by providing some context: military policy, psychologists' perspective on seeing a dead body, the history of demon possession. All of these elements build alongside Caleb's continual transformation of relationships, places of residences, and jobs. Percy also gets more involved, going through an exorcism herself, an occurrence much needed in the book although it brings up questions about writers' choosing their stories over their own health. When the last scene comes, we are left with an image of Caleb and Percy that lingers.
I'm glad I pushed through the book because after I finished it, I could see how Percy uses the structure of the book to take us in and out of PTSD, around it, so that we are left with more questions than answers. That seems to be an appropriate ride, considering the story.
The change starts with Percy's meeting with Kristina, Kip's old girlfriend. From there Percy shifts gears and widens her lens by providing some context: military policy, psychologists' perspective on seeing a dead body, the history of demon possession. All of these elements build alongside Caleb's continual transformation of relationships, places of residences, and jobs. Percy also gets more involved, going through an exorcism herself, an occurrence much needed in the book although it brings up questions about writers' choosing their stories over their own health. When the last scene comes, we are left with an image of Caleb and Percy that lingers.
I'm glad I pushed through the book because after I finished it, I could see how Percy uses the structure of the book to take us in and out of PTSD, around it, so that we are left with more questions than answers. That seems to be an appropriate ride, considering the story.
March 9, 2014
Just let the soldiers' stories speak, please, author. No need for you to insert yourself into their stories. I would have loved this book, devastation et al, if it was just about the soldiers.
On the whole, this felt like an Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate trying to show that she can write...thus it was so overwritten that writing became distracting to the plot.
The three stars are for the soldiers.
On the whole, this felt like an Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate trying to show that she can write...thus it was so overwritten that writing became distracting to the plot.
The three stars are for the soldiers.
July 24, 2021
Listening to this book was a deeply personal experience for me. I'm the child of a Vietnam-era veteran, my grandparents and their siblings were involved in the World War II effort, and I was married to a soldier during OEF. One of my long-time best friends is a Marine, and I've done a lot of work with veteran-based nonprofits that help veterans to recover and find a sense of purpose after they come home.
All of that is to say, I've been steeped in the long-term psychological consequences of war for a long time.
Demon Camp both is and isn't a story about veterans. Initially, Jennifer Percy was granted a fellowship to write about combat soldiers, PTSD, and veteran suicide. She met Caleb Daniels, a veteran who had served with the 160th SOAR (A) (also known as the Night Stalkers) and had, largely by chance, avoided a helicopter crash that killed everyone on board.
As we follow Jennifer and she gets to know Sgt Daniels, her ability to keep distance and maintain objectivity becomes thinner and thinner until it finally snaps. She travels to the eponymous Demon Camp, an exorcism camp in Georgia that Daniels is deeply involved in (he is, in fact, married into the minister's family). She gets to know the other members of the camp -- some veterans, some not -- and as she travels deeper into the world of exorcisms, the line between passive observer and active participant becomes blurred.
This book was extremely difficult for me to listen to, but I couldn't stop. I went on an hour-long hike with my dog after getting home from work just so I didn't have to stop listening. I know these stories. The taste of Daniels' story is far too familiar for comfort. The interviews with the wives and widows could easily be interviews with women I've known. And once we start getting to know the members of the Demon Camp, we take a hard left into some deeply strange territory that leaves the reader with a feeling of watching a fever dream unfold.
I think Percy did an exceptional job with this. This appears to be a somewhat polarizing book, from the reviews, but I find the way Jennifer Percy writes captivating. I wasn't bored for a single second of this book, although I was intensely uncomfortable for most of it. It reminds me strongly of some of Jon Krakauer's more gonzo-esque journalistic endeavors. In my estimation, this is gonzo journalism at its finest. I'm going to be sitting with this for a long time.
All of that is to say, I've been steeped in the long-term psychological consequences of war for a long time.
Demon Camp both is and isn't a story about veterans. Initially, Jennifer Percy was granted a fellowship to write about combat soldiers, PTSD, and veteran suicide. She met Caleb Daniels, a veteran who had served with the 160th SOAR (A) (also known as the Night Stalkers) and had, largely by chance, avoided a helicopter crash that killed everyone on board.
As we follow Jennifer and she gets to know Sgt Daniels, her ability to keep distance and maintain objectivity becomes thinner and thinner until it finally snaps. She travels to the eponymous Demon Camp, an exorcism camp in Georgia that Daniels is deeply involved in (he is, in fact, married into the minister's family). She gets to know the other members of the camp -- some veterans, some not -- and as she travels deeper into the world of exorcisms, the line between passive observer and active participant becomes blurred.
This book was extremely difficult for me to listen to, but I couldn't stop. I went on an hour-long hike with my dog after getting home from work just so I didn't have to stop listening. I know these stories. The taste of Daniels' story is far too familiar for comfort. The interviews with the wives and widows could easily be interviews with women I've known. And once we start getting to know the members of the Demon Camp, we take a hard left into some deeply strange territory that leaves the reader with a feeling of watching a fever dream unfold.
I think Percy did an exceptional job with this. This appears to be a somewhat polarizing book, from the reviews, but I find the way Jennifer Percy writes captivating. I wasn't bored for a single second of this book, although I was intensely uncomfortable for most of it. It reminds me strongly of some of Jon Krakauer's more gonzo-esque journalistic endeavors. In my estimation, this is gonzo journalism at its finest. I'm going to be sitting with this for a long time.
Read
September 14, 2023I heard this recommended by Esmé Weijun Wang and thought it sounded interesting, but I couldn't really get into it.
January 17, 2021
deeply disturbing and written like a poem. it's really good. I spent most of the book asking myself if this was fiction or not. it's non fiction, lol. five stars.
September 20, 2017
Demon Camp is a beautifully written work of immersion journalism that causes the reader to ponder the way America has dealt with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the last century. This book enchants the mind with political and psychological nuances through first-hand accounts with ex-soldier Caleb Daniels. Jen Percy creates a magnificently crafted narrative that pushes the boundaries of reporting and creates an intimate personal experience for her as a writer, journalist, and human being. Percy’s quest to vocalize a silent and often misrepresented population of soldiers suffering from the aftermath of war is thoughtful and engaging. Using 3rd person limited in the first section, she recounts the life of Sergeant Caleb Daniels; giving the book a foundation to work from as she delves into the 1st person narrative for the remainder of the book. She becomes engrossed in the world that Caleb inhabits, and dives into her own spiritual battle while maintaining a journalistic boundary.
Her quest to redefine, and distill the definition of PTSD through immersion journalism is daunting yet profound. Through Caleb Daniels, Percy investigates the harsh realities of fighting an invisible war after coming home from deployment. Initially, I was turned off by the Christianese/exorcism aspect of the book, but it ended up becoming a fascinating depiction of how people deal with mental illness in remote parts of the country. Portal, Georgia became a literary "portal" to heaven and hell. These people saw demons in everyday life; giving them titles like, Lucifer, The Destroyer, Jezebel, or labeling them as "suicide demons." 95% of the population was military. Percy's pursuit to engage America in a psychological narrative that has long been developing since WWI proves to provide an emphatic voice for victims of trauma. Showered with short sections about the historical development of the emotional condition of soldiers returning from war,
"When the DSM-II was published in 1968, there was no specific listing for the trauma produced by the war. So in 1969, when American troop involvement escalated in Vietnam, there was still no term available to psychiatrists. They were required to use the language of civilian disease. Historically, hysteria was considered a distinctly female problem. Elaine Showalter writes in The Female Malady about such gender expectations of soldiers during World War I: “When all signs of physical fear were judged as weakness and where alternative to combat—pacifism, conscientious objection, desertion, even suicide—were viewed as unmanly, men were silenced and immobilized and forced, like women, to express their conflicts through the body.” (Percy 219)
Percy’s narrative throughout the book invoked thoughtful, psychological, and political contemplation, causing the reader to reconsider the meaning of the word: PTSD. Using factual evidence from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, she exposed the dissonance of the condition throughout the last century,
“It’s no wonder PTSD has had more than eighty different names in the last hundred years: neurasthenia, hysteria, war hysteria, irritable heart, soldier’s heart, disorderly conduct of the heart, combat exhaustion, combat fatigue, neurocirculatory asthenia, shell shock, war neurosis, fright neurosis, trauma neurosis, combat stress reaction, stress response syndrome, Vietnam syndrome, war sailor syndrome. French physicians of the Napoleonic Wars simply called it nostalgia. It’s a condition constantly refusing definition. It’s as if the illness itself were enacting its own symptoms.” (Percy 218)
It is this ever-present search for answers that carries Percy’s narrative throughout the book, and her firm political stance against the evils that come with war:
“You think Afghanistan is scary? You think a fucking IED is scary? Rockets? Dead guys everywhere? It’s nothing compared to this war. This war is much, much worse.” (Percy 210)
Percy’s Demon Camp concocts a vivid drama that creates a conversation about how America deals with war, and how our culture has been a by-product of a war-torn nation for over 100 years:
“If Caleb sustains one kind of hallucination, then America maintains another—the hallucination of a sterile war. If we consider the psychiatrist Jonathan Shay’s understanding of PTSD, that it is among other things, the persistence of wartime behaviors into peacetime, I can’t help but wonder if the United States as a nation is suffering from a form of cultural PTSD.” (Percy 152)
Her quest to redefine, and distill the definition of PTSD through immersion journalism is daunting yet profound. Through Caleb Daniels, Percy investigates the harsh realities of fighting an invisible war after coming home from deployment. Initially, I was turned off by the Christianese/exorcism aspect of the book, but it ended up becoming a fascinating depiction of how people deal with mental illness in remote parts of the country. Portal, Georgia became a literary "portal" to heaven and hell. These people saw demons in everyday life; giving them titles like, Lucifer, The Destroyer, Jezebel, or labeling them as "suicide demons." 95% of the population was military. Percy's pursuit to engage America in a psychological narrative that has long been developing since WWI proves to provide an emphatic voice for victims of trauma. Showered with short sections about the historical development of the emotional condition of soldiers returning from war,
"When the DSM-II was published in 1968, there was no specific listing for the trauma produced by the war. So in 1969, when American troop involvement escalated in Vietnam, there was still no term available to psychiatrists. They were required to use the language of civilian disease. Historically, hysteria was considered a distinctly female problem. Elaine Showalter writes in The Female Malady about such gender expectations of soldiers during World War I: “When all signs of physical fear were judged as weakness and where alternative to combat—pacifism, conscientious objection, desertion, even suicide—were viewed as unmanly, men were silenced and immobilized and forced, like women, to express their conflicts through the body.” (Percy 219)
Percy’s narrative throughout the book invoked thoughtful, psychological, and political contemplation, causing the reader to reconsider the meaning of the word: PTSD. Using factual evidence from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, she exposed the dissonance of the condition throughout the last century,
“It’s no wonder PTSD has had more than eighty different names in the last hundred years: neurasthenia, hysteria, war hysteria, irritable heart, soldier’s heart, disorderly conduct of the heart, combat exhaustion, combat fatigue, neurocirculatory asthenia, shell shock, war neurosis, fright neurosis, trauma neurosis, combat stress reaction, stress response syndrome, Vietnam syndrome, war sailor syndrome. French physicians of the Napoleonic Wars simply called it nostalgia. It’s a condition constantly refusing definition. It’s as if the illness itself were enacting its own symptoms.” (Percy 218)
It is this ever-present search for answers that carries Percy’s narrative throughout the book, and her firm political stance against the evils that come with war:
“You think Afghanistan is scary? You think a fucking IED is scary? Rockets? Dead guys everywhere? It’s nothing compared to this war. This war is much, much worse.” (Percy 210)
Percy’s Demon Camp concocts a vivid drama that creates a conversation about how America deals with war, and how our culture has been a by-product of a war-torn nation for over 100 years:
“If Caleb sustains one kind of hallucination, then America maintains another—the hallucination of a sterile war. If we consider the psychiatrist Jonathan Shay’s understanding of PTSD, that it is among other things, the persistence of wartime behaviors into peacetime, I can’t help but wonder if the United States as a nation is suffering from a form of cultural PTSD.” (Percy 152)
June 28, 2015
Jen Percy succeeds in creating an alternative narrative of PTSD in this book. The writing is engrossing, direct and filled with empathy for the book's protagonists. I read it in one sitting, unable to put it down.
Percy dives so deep into the psyche of Caleb, a veteran who is convinced he's been possessed by demons, that it allows a total suspension of judgment. Writing Caleb into such a sympathetic character is a pretty extraordinary feat. I couldn't sleep for several nights after reading the book. I convinced myself that the demons that could have possibly transferred to Percy could maybe also transfer to readers like me. This, I felt, is truly what the book is about -- how the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan are transferred and transmitted in society at large.
This book isn't just an exploration of PTSD, but also takes a hard look at buried collective fears that have emerged after Iraq and Afghanistan. It's an exploration of American society's PTSD. It's impossible to walk away from this book still believing in the "crazy veteran" narrative.
Percy dives so deep into the psyche of Caleb, a veteran who is convinced he's been possessed by demons, that it allows a total suspension of judgment. Writing Caleb into such a sympathetic character is a pretty extraordinary feat. I couldn't sleep for several nights after reading the book. I convinced myself that the demons that could have possibly transferred to Percy could maybe also transfer to readers like me. This, I felt, is truly what the book is about -- how the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan are transferred and transmitted in society at large.
This book isn't just an exploration of PTSD, but also takes a hard look at buried collective fears that have emerged after Iraq and Afghanistan. It's an exploration of American society's PTSD. It's impossible to walk away from this book still believing in the "crazy veteran" narrative.
April 2, 2014
This book is so good I did not want to quit reading, even at two in the morning. And even after shutting off the light, and staring at the ceiling, my body rattled with the experience of following the book's subjects and narrator.
Unlike so many "war stories/war books", "Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism" doesn't seem concerned with creating a perfectly cogent narrative, or answering every unanswerable question surrounding violence, conflict, and war. Instead, it shows great compassion to the wounded Americans returning from war, tries to empathize with their vulnerabilities and fears. And in doing so, this book displays an America that is deeply wounded, deeply scared, and ultimately haunted. At times, I was reminded of the work of Charles Bowden or Harry Crews. This is high-test stuff.
Unlike so many "war stories/war books", "Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism" doesn't seem concerned with creating a perfectly cogent narrative, or answering every unanswerable question surrounding violence, conflict, and war. Instead, it shows great compassion to the wounded Americans returning from war, tries to empathize with their vulnerabilities and fears. And in doing so, this book displays an America that is deeply wounded, deeply scared, and ultimately haunted. At times, I was reminded of the work of Charles Bowden or Harry Crews. This is high-test stuff.
June 5, 2014
Demon Camp refuses to let me go.
It is not human interest story or exploitation. You'll find nothing fluffy (it has really rough moments). But prepare to be emotionally stirred from the get.
This book is revealing reporting and more than once I wondered, "How should I be reacting?" Percy does not direct you toward "the right way" to see Caleb or the others whose lives she observed and with whom she interacted.
Percy is integral to the story because SHE IS YOU. She is "you", the supposedly normal one who has all her shit together. She illustrates how trauma can change a person quickly, make them question themselves. So many individuals suffering from PTSD are on their own to find a way to cope.
I highly recommend this book because it is thought-provoking and sharply defines the difficulties soldiers and their families endure.
It is not human interest story or exploitation. You'll find nothing fluffy (it has really rough moments). But prepare to be emotionally stirred from the get.
This book is revealing reporting and more than once I wondered, "How should I be reacting?" Percy does not direct you toward "the right way" to see Caleb or the others whose lives she observed and with whom she interacted.
Percy is integral to the story because SHE IS YOU. She is "you", the supposedly normal one who has all her shit together. She illustrates how trauma can change a person quickly, make them question themselves. So many individuals suffering from PTSD are on their own to find a way to cope.
I highly recommend this book because it is thought-provoking and sharply defines the difficulties soldiers and their families endure.
March 31, 2014
Where George Saunders is a candidate for consideration as this generation's Vonnegut, so's Percy for Joan Didion after writing this one. Her observance is constant and steady while studying a group, or movement, of Evangelical-esque trauma survivors who appropriate their memories with the tangibility of visible, lethal monsters. With subjects who speak almost exclusively in emphatic abstractions, she still manages to tell a simple, clear, and precise story. Her one-line observations are so deft, they'll pass over more than a few heads, and I love her for it. Here's post-war America in poverty.
March 27, 2014
I would give this 3 and 1/2 but it is not an option. Quite an interesting (if twisted) look at PTSD. It seems as though the main subject of this book - Caleb - is convinced that demons are the cause for what we would call PTSD and has established or become a part of a whole community of like-minded thinkers. Where I got confused was what the author's role was in it. Was she also convinced after spending so much time with Caleb that she too had demons? Or was she just playing along to get the "inside scoop" so to speak? This kinda ruined the book for me. I wish she focused more on just the community and less on her part in it.
March 9, 2015
An absolutely astounding book. So well written, so personal, it dives right into the American soul and look around unflinchingly.
Percy injects herself right into the story to directly tell her experiences interacted with soldiers affected with PTSD and the uniquely American ways they come to terms with the horrors they've seen. From religion to relationships to politics it's a fascinating journey that is told in a breathless stream-of-consciousness style that is just perfect.
The book is visceral, raw, and ranks up there with Phil Klay's "Redeployment" as the best book to tell about the personal impact of America's war on terror. Everyone should read it. Brilliant.
Percy injects herself right into the story to directly tell her experiences interacted with soldiers affected with PTSD and the uniquely American ways they come to terms with the horrors they've seen. From religion to relationships to politics it's a fascinating journey that is told in a breathless stream-of-consciousness style that is just perfect.
The book is visceral, raw, and ranks up there with Phil Klay's "Redeployment" as the best book to tell about the personal impact of America's war on terror. Everyone should read it. Brilliant.
July 19, 2014
At first this book was engaging enough, but I had to give up halfway through. The author is way too gullible for me. The main character is a man who did not complete high school, committed adultery multiple times, endured traumatic army indoctrination, and endured extremely horrific events in the war. Yet, when he starts talking about his training as a native American spirit guide, and how PTSD is really demonic possession, the author seems to believe him! Completely crazy!
March 10, 2019
I was given this book two years ago by someone who thought I'd like it (but who probably hadn't read it either). I suppose it was written to have your head get submersed in the experience of what living with PTSD is like but having no clear, separate narration from the journalist made it a confusing read. Again that was probably by design....
April 11, 2014
Very intense book. I really liked Jennifer's writing style on this subject. I felt she tried to leave it open for interpretation and didn't push her views into the 'story'. I look forward to reading future books she writes.
April 9, 2015
this book was interesting but I think the execution was wrong. it felt very jumbled the second half of the book and almost heard
hard to follow. it ended so abruptly it feels unfinished. maybe these are all things the author wanted?
hard to follow. it ended so abruptly it feels unfinished. maybe these are all things the author wanted?
October 30, 2017
A favorite author and radio personality of mine is Studs Terkel. I grew up near Chicago and had a chance to listen to him on the radio from time to time depending on my reception. Something I specifically enjoyed about Terkel was his ability to let an interviewer speak for themselves, without injecting himself into the story they were telling. This by no means meant that Terkel agreed with them, in fact he was a partisan through and through on the front line of class warfare, always on the side of the workers, putting him squarely in disagreement with many of the politicians, industrialists, and socialites he interviewed. His genius was in how he managed to get people to say what they seemed to truly believe, and in them telling that truth the audience could judge for themselves the merits of the speaker’s argument. Terkel’s best known book, Working, is an excellent example of this, and was something I thought of several times as I read Demon Camp.
Jennifer Percy’s book feels very much like the sort of oral history work Terkel did in Working. The characters found in this book are full of life (because, well, they are truly alive) more in the way you find fictional characters written, than what you might find in more straight-journalistic piece of non-fiction that looks to spend time backing up every statement with research. I found myself both exceedingly interested in Caleb’s life, as well as completely disturbed, by the arc of his search for relief from “the Black Thing”.
I think this book diverged from the way Working plays out at the point that Percy begins indulging Caleb, and the other cast members in this drama, by joining in on these “exorcisms”. Percy seemingly even accepts the validity of these tactics without any real challenge. Throughout the book there are fits and starts of calm, yet by the end we realize Caleb never actually finds the peace he is looking for.
Then in an unexpected twist, the postscript to the book reveals a data and research response to the story Caleb (and Percy) have told, that this condition (PTSD, shell-shock, etc.) has been going on as long as there have been traumatic experiences. In these brief couple of pages it appears that Percy does actually reject the notion that Caleb could be exorcised of the “demons” that haunt his days and dreams. If this is correct, then I am forced to question whether Percy was manipulative in her participation in being exorcised herself, and becoming a part of the action herself.
Jennifer Percy’s book feels very much like the sort of oral history work Terkel did in Working. The characters found in this book are full of life (because, well, they are truly alive) more in the way you find fictional characters written, than what you might find in more straight-journalistic piece of non-fiction that looks to spend time backing up every statement with research. I found myself both exceedingly interested in Caleb’s life, as well as completely disturbed, by the arc of his search for relief from “the Black Thing”.
I think this book diverged from the way Working plays out at the point that Percy begins indulging Caleb, and the other cast members in this drama, by joining in on these “exorcisms”. Percy seemingly even accepts the validity of these tactics without any real challenge. Throughout the book there are fits and starts of calm, yet by the end we realize Caleb never actually finds the peace he is looking for.
Then in an unexpected twist, the postscript to the book reveals a data and research response to the story Caleb (and Percy) have told, that this condition (PTSD, shell-shock, etc.) has been going on as long as there have been traumatic experiences. In these brief couple of pages it appears that Percy does actually reject the notion that Caleb could be exorcised of the “demons” that haunt his days and dreams. If this is correct, then I am forced to question whether Percy was manipulative in her participation in being exorcised herself, and becoming a part of the action herself.
June 11, 2017
Though not a book I would have chosen to read (it's for a class), the themes, ideas, and facts put forth in the book were interesting. In this review, I'm mainly commenting on the narrative choices of the author, and not the content of the book itself.
The first part was about Caleb, and the author/narrator enters the book in the second part, which added a unique tension. As a nonfiction story written primarily about another character, why was she (the author) in the story at all? The book grew more into her own story, yet I felt there was so much that she - as both author and first-person narrator in the story - was not giving to the reader about herself. It seemed much was personally blocked off from a story so rich with details about everyone else. I guess here I'm trying to explain, or even understand, why the rating of two stars instead of three or four. Writing nonfiction requires a sort of transparency of the author, and that was missing, perhaps because of the intense and harrowing subject matter. I cannot judge why it was missing, only wonder.
Even so, the author took on a huge subject, and demonstrated great courage to immerse herself into this story so completely to where some of the questions of the characters in the story seemed to grow and develop as her questions as well. The fact that I finished the book in under two days is testament to its gripping narrative and fascinating subject matter.
The first part was about Caleb, and the author/narrator enters the book in the second part, which added a unique tension. As a nonfiction story written primarily about another character, why was she (the author) in the story at all? The book grew more into her own story, yet I felt there was so much that she - as both author and first-person narrator in the story - was not giving to the reader about herself. It seemed much was personally blocked off from a story so rich with details about everyone else. I guess here I'm trying to explain, or even understand, why the rating of two stars instead of three or four. Writing nonfiction requires a sort of transparency of the author, and that was missing, perhaps because of the intense and harrowing subject matter. I cannot judge why it was missing, only wonder.
Even so, the author took on a huge subject, and demonstrated great courage to immerse herself into this story so completely to where some of the questions of the characters in the story seemed to grow and develop as her questions as well. The fact that I finished the book in under two days is testament to its gripping narrative and fascinating subject matter.
April 8, 2023
Oscillating between 2.5 and 3
Started out strong, fast-paced, lots of gut punching lines dropped in. After the first two sections, I feel like we started to lose the thread. The fast pace didn’t work anymore.
I wanted to either delve deeper, or spend less time with the ministry and deliverances. The connections with PTSD, Caleb, and the central problem of veteran suicide got stretched too thin.
We spend a lot of time with people whose partners are military overseas, but we don’t know anything about those partners. We spend even more time with people whose only relation to war is the occasional vet popping in for an exorcism.
Maybe we could have gone in and tied the strings together. It seems like the author got overwhelmed with her experiences and wanted to write them out, but forgot her thesis.
I really, really liked the first two parts though.
Started out strong, fast-paced, lots of gut punching lines dropped in. After the first two sections, I feel like we started to lose the thread. The fast pace didn’t work anymore.
I wanted to either delve deeper, or spend less time with the ministry and deliverances. The connections with PTSD, Caleb, and the central problem of veteran suicide got stretched too thin.
We spend a lot of time with people whose partners are military overseas, but we don’t know anything about those partners. We spend even more time with people whose only relation to war is the occasional vet popping in for an exorcism.
Maybe we could have gone in and tied the strings together. It seems like the author got overwhelmed with her experiences and wanted to write them out, but forgot her thesis.
I really, really liked the first two parts though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 2, 2019
It's partly about PTSD, but also about culture clash. What happens when an atheist liberal MFA-type immerses herself among the least educated and most religious people in the country? And lets them influence her? There are many more details than explanations, but the details are carefully enough gathered that they speak for themselves.
The people are weird, the writing unique. Highly recommended.
I wander outside, onto the porch, where a woman's drinking something yellow, wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Her body spills from the chair. I hear her breathe. Some of her hair is curly and some straight. She kills ants with her feet. "I worked at AT&T for twenty years," she says. "Nothing to write home about."
The people are weird, the writing unique. Highly recommended.
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