The Devil in the Dooryard

by Gregory Blake Smith

Smith's ambitious, experimental first novel takes its title from the writings of the preacher and moralist Cotton Mather. Using several other 17th century American narrativesi.e., a "Description of New England" and an Indian captivityas models and subtexts, protagonist John Wheelwright, who calls himself "Wright," inveighs in the spirit of a Puritan divine against today's evils of abortion, infidelity, shoddy architecture, game shows and female vanity, to name a few. Wright, assuming the identity of a young cabinetmaker and historian of colonial Massachusetts, does not always succeed in interesting his wife, Hetty, in his archeological digs or his communications with long-dead ancestors and the Wampanoag sachem King Philip. Hetty's main concern is her professional guardianship of a pair of autistic twins, whose plight reflects the fallen world. As it shuttles between the past and present, tracing current American woes to the prophecies of our Anglican and Puritan forefathers, the novel is too didactic, too stuffed with lengthily quoted literary passages and moral outrage to seize the reader's sympathetic attention. Smith is capable of writing very well, but this novel misfires.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Gregory Blake Smith is the award-winning author of four novels, including The Maze at Windermere and The Divine Comedy of John Venner, a New York Times Notable Book. His short story collection, The Law of Miracles, won the Juniper Prize and the Minnesota Book Award. He has received a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and the George Bennett Fellowship at Phillips Exeter Academy and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Smith is currently the Lloyd P. Johnson-Norwest Professor of English and the Liberal Arts at Carleton College.