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The Devil Raises His Own
Bill Ogden, icon of the West, is back in this new crime saga set in the early days of the film industry—from the master of Western noirThis dark historical adventure captures the beginnings of the Hollywood studio system and the “blue movie” industry that grows up alongside it.A full 45 years after the events of Cottonwood, and two decades after the events of Hop Alley, Bill Ogden has relocated from the frontier west to the seedy noir world of 1916 Los Angeles. He has a photography studio in Los Angeles, and his granddaughter, Flavia, has joined him (she was looking for a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita). The novel’s characters include dangerous ex con, an arrogant young leading man, a naive would be film actress, film workers crossing from mainstream cinema to stag films—their lives intertwine, as a series of murders take place across the city.It is at once a stripped down noir, and a panoramic look at Los Angeles at the beginning of motion pictures—a Boogie Nights set at start of the film era.Scott Phillips has created a world pulsing with life and threat, populated with criminals, dreamers, opportunists, and unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, or launch a career, all of their lives crossing with the still very capable Bill Ogden and his equally capable granddaughter.
385 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 16, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
May 11, 2025
Another brilliant novel by Scott Phillips.
Who knew enterprising photographers brought their expertise to filmmaking as early as 1919 and that those endeavors ultimately led to the cash cow of smut movies, or fraternal organizations “smokers”?
That would be an also known as Filthy Pornography to you.
This is a rocking, rolling saga featuring multiple characters juggling multiple woes.
There’s also much mayhem- both amusing and disconcerting- what with a maniac on the loose in early Los Angeles searching for the wife who absconded from his brutality with their two children in tow.
Of special interest to author Scott Phillips enthusiasts, an older, grayer “Bill Ogden” -one of the great fictional rogues- returns to stagger the senses of all decent folk.
I enjoyed this immensely and it brought to mind the 1980s novels of E. L. Doctorow or John Irving.
Terrific fun and highly recommended.
Who knew enterprising photographers brought their expertise to filmmaking as early as 1919 and that those endeavors ultimately led to the cash cow of smut movies, or fraternal organizations “smokers”?
That would be an also known as Filthy Pornography to you.
This is a rocking, rolling saga featuring multiple characters juggling multiple woes.
There’s also much mayhem- both amusing and disconcerting- what with a maniac on the loose in early Los Angeles searching for the wife who absconded from his brutality with their two children in tow.
Of special interest to author Scott Phillips enthusiasts, an older, grayer “Bill Ogden” -one of the great fictional rogues- returns to stagger the senses of all decent folk.
I enjoyed this immensely and it brought to mind the 1980s novels of E. L. Doctorow or John Irving.
Terrific fun and highly recommended.
August 20, 2024
I'd encountered the character Bill Ogden before, in Phillips Hop Alley, but he was also in Cottonwood, a novel I've somehow not read. At any rate, this isn't a sequel to either, though Bill is a prominent character among quite an ensemble of assorted and sometimes sordid personas.
You may have heard that this book is concerned with the pornographic film industry circa 1916, and that is indeed one thing covered herein. You also may have heard that there is graphic sex and violence, both trademarks of Phillips novels. But, while these are all told with a variety of views, from ironic to wholesome, from painful to enthusiastic, they are not the entire focus of the story.
To me, the book reads like an homage to movies of the 1910s, when montage was making its way into the language of film. Sections of the novel are so filled with quick cuts to increase suspense you'd think D.W. Griffith was reincarnated as a novelist, though without the racism. It takes several chapters of introducing characters and settings before there is an understanding that everything is in some way connected. Bill and his granddaughter run a photography studio; three other people are involved in the pornography studio. Two women actresses in those films make their way up in the world. The two children of one of them become stars while saving the career of a nearly washed up actor who really wants to sleep with another woman who becomes a star because our friend Bill finds a way to make her more beautiful. Oh, yeah, Bill hires a young man as an assistant who had traveled to Los Angeles on a train where he met another guy, the nastiest MF in the book, who happens to be the estranged husband of one of the aforementioned actresses and the father of the two tots. And, meanwhile, there's a postal worker in Iowa who loves the porn movies a bit too much.
I think that covers everything without giving away too many spoilers - this is an intricately plotted and frequently hilarious adventure story set against the backdrop of the US inching towards involvement in WWI.
One more thing - nine days ago, I encountered for the first time in decades the word "fantods," uttered by Lee Marvin in a fascinating but seriously flawed flick called Raintree County. I started telling my friends about how much I loved this word. Naturally, Scott Phillips uses it twice within this novel.
You may have heard that this book is concerned with the pornographic film industry circa 1916, and that is indeed one thing covered herein. You also may have heard that there is graphic sex and violence, both trademarks of Phillips novels. But, while these are all told with a variety of views, from ironic to wholesome, from painful to enthusiastic, they are not the entire focus of the story.
To me, the book reads like an homage to movies of the 1910s, when montage was making its way into the language of film. Sections of the novel are so filled with quick cuts to increase suspense you'd think D.W. Griffith was reincarnated as a novelist, though without the racism. It takes several chapters of introducing characters and settings before there is an understanding that everything is in some way connected. Bill and his granddaughter run a photography studio; three other people are involved in the pornography studio. Two women actresses in those films make their way up in the world. The two children of one of them become stars while saving the career of a nearly washed up actor who really wants to sleep with another woman who becomes a star because our friend Bill finds a way to make her more beautiful. Oh, yeah, Bill hires a young man as an assistant who had traveled to Los Angeles on a train where he met another guy, the nastiest MF in the book, who happens to be the estranged husband of one of the aforementioned actresses and the father of the two tots. And, meanwhile, there's a postal worker in Iowa who loves the porn movies a bit too much.
I think that covers everything without giving away too many spoilers - this is an intricately plotted and frequently hilarious adventure story set against the backdrop of the US inching towards involvement in WWI.
One more thing - nine days ago, I encountered for the first time in decades the word "fantods," uttered by Lee Marvin in a fascinating but seriously flawed flick called Raintree County. I started telling my friends about how much I loved this word. Naturally, Scott Phillips uses it twice within this novel.
August 30, 2024
Gritty, grimy, graphic, lots of male characters acting like ... well, gritty male characters, but with plenty of women who have their own POVs and are very clearly doing what they have to in order to survive. It was a bit too "hard-boiled crime" for me to regularly read the author, but definitely an entertaining read for once in a while when the mood is right.
May 10, 2024
A very pleasant read. The author does a great job of re-creating the 1916 LA atmosphere, between the characters themselves and the language they use, their mentality, the technologies available at the time, the blue movie industry, etc. He keeps the book fast-paced by moving the action in small touches for each character until the climax at the end. It's also a fun read with colorful characters and he mixes humor, tenderness, depravity and violence all in 1 book. I recommend. OK, and now the big question, what do I read next??
October 6, 2024
I wasted an audiobook credit on this after seeing a NY Times recommendation. This is not the first time and I doubt I’ll be doing that again. A couple of stars for novelty and the historical aspect. QUITE raunchy which I wouldn’t mind if it was funny. It is not. And I strongly disliked the narrator and the way he voiced women. I would like to have returned it. But I didn’t downright hate it.
September 13, 2025
Way, way too many character viewpoints to be an enjoyable novel
April 8, 2025
Another Fine Addition to the "Devil" Series
I liked it, easy reading and it kept my attention, but ...
Cons
1. Porn
2. Hookers
3. Fruits
3. Perverts
Pros
1. Plenty of action
2. Exciting ending
3. Lots of characters who converge as the story unfolds - a scheme I like.
I liked it, easy reading and it kept my attention, but ...
Cons
1. Porn
2. Hookers
3. Fruits
3. Perverts
Pros
1. Plenty of action
2. Exciting ending
3. Lots of characters who converge as the story unfolds - a scheme I like.
September 15, 2024
The title and cover art of THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN suggest that the reader is about to embark on another Scott Phillips noir novel. At the bottom of the scene on the cover is a smoking pistol belching a black miasma that envelops a night-time view of a large, perhaps crime-ridden city neighborhood. But by the time we arrive at chapter two, barely six pages in, we suspect that the artist and the novelist are playing tricks on us.
Though the beginning of the prologue reads a lot like that noir novel we're expecting, something soon feels amiss. Flavia Purcell, nee Ogden, who lives in Wichita, Kansas, in 1915, is angry at her husband for coming home late again, drunk as usual. She lets him know that she's talking to a divorce lawyer. He slaps her viciously and then apologizes. That doesn't work for Flavia. He immediately goes into the bedroom, pulls out his revolver and aims it directly at her. She then grabs a baseball bat that was a gift from her father and smashes him in the head with it. Blood splatters over everything, and he's dead.
This sure does look, feel and smell like noir. Yet the tone of the narration and the dialogue is almost light, and funny. Flavia is found innocent of any crime as it becomes obvious that she acted in self-defense. She is a free woman but has lost her job as a Latin teacher and probably any friends she has, since they all figure to be deathly afraid of her. So she writes to her grandfather in Los Angeles (she has no living parents) that she's leaving her home and would like him to take her in and teach her his occupation and his art --- photography.
Now the action moves swiftly forward in chapter one and begins the process of introducing the main characters. We realize quickly that they are as important to the story as Flavia. In fact, as the novel progresses, we learn that it has no single protagonist.
That’s not the only unusual feature of Phillips' book. We'll return to the character descriptions below, but first, I must insert my recommendation. Yes, I enthusiastically recommend THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN, especially for fans of the noir genre. It's humorous and action-packed; it "boasts" much violence and many deaths; its narrative technique is superb; its dialogue is witty; and it somehow projects an extraordinarily accurate feeling of and for its time. As I read, I felt that had I been an aspiring movie star or executive in 1915, I would have exhibited the same language characteristics, the same vocabulary items, the same kinds of phrases and memes, and the same remarkably expressive linguistic sensibilities as the characters here. The entire set of sounds and pictures jumping off the pages made me feel amazingly as if I were living in that time and place and observing in person the wonderfully crazy characters who people the novel.
Yet there's a big "BUT" here. Enthusiastic recommendation notwithstanding, I must issue a reservation. Actually, a warning. If a given reader is offended by "dirty" language, downright smutty sexual descriptions and behaviors, frank and explicit discussions, and descriptions of sexual acts of virtually every variety, please pass on this novel. As a matter of fact, you might want to skip the rest of this review because there's no way you'll get past the first few pages of the book without feeling that you'd like to censor it or burn it and maybe deport the author to some faraway land.
However, if you're not "turned off" by all those elements of the novel, you'll love it.
So we arrive at our detailed yet abbreviated descriptions of some of the characters and their respective, but certainly not respectable, stories, presented in more or less chronological order as they appear in the book.
(1) Flavia is introduced first and remains important right to the very end.
(2) Bill is Flavia's skirt-chasing grandfather with whom she lives in L.A. after her escape from Wichita. This big-hearted and generous old guy is a superb photographer whose clientele ranges from rich old dowagers to producers of porn movies.
(3) Purity Dove, whose real name is Myrna, is a wannabe film heroine whose budding movie career is stymied by terrible teeth and a misshapen jaw. Bill takes her photos gratis and sends her for free dental work to a shady but competent dentist who owes him money. She is soon on her way to becoming a B-list movie starlet.
(4) Jack Strong, Myrna's ex-boyfriend, is a real no-good-nik. He rapes a girl and spends the rest of the novel in jail.
(5) Grady is a porn film producer and director whose movies are beyond shameless and very, very naked.
(6) Victoria is a sort-of porn actress who is bubbly, talkative and sincerely affectionate. She somehow projects true innocence despite her unusually smutty occupation.
(7) Trudy is Victoria's lover both in the movies and eventually in real life. She's smart and strong, and she radiates porn movie beauty.
(8) Henry, a bright, young, relatively innocent guy who rides the roof of a boxcar to get to California, is hired by Bill to learn and practice the photographic arts and turns out to be the perfect lover for Flavia.
(9) Ezra, the baddest of the book's many bad guys, had abandoned Trudy while she was giving birth to a baby who did not survive. They had two other children whom Ezra, of course, had also abandoned, ostensibly to find a way to make more money to support the family. (Incidentally, the two children become important characters toward the end of the novel.) But many months go by, and he does not return, so Trudy takes the children to live in L.A., and Ezra is determined to find them. Since leaving his family, his habits have included robbing whomever he can, brutally murdering anyone who disagrees with him about anything, and beating or killing anyone he considers unlikable.
Like all the important characters, Ezra will live in L.A., a particularly excellent place to attack people with his claw-end hammer. However, he does perform one heroic deed. He had joined Henry on top of the boxcar, and when they reached Bakersfield and exited the train, an old, drunken hobo had caught Henry from behind, sliced a cut in the back of the kid's neck, and demanded Henry's rucksack with all his possessions in it. Ezra saw the incident unfolding and attacked the hobo with his brutal hammer. Then he slit the drunk's neck from ear to ear. A true hero. And that serves as our introduction to Ezra.
(10) The Buntnagles, George and Irene, are a wealthy couple who buy out Grady's company, though he continues to produce and direct porn films for his new employers while they move on to making comedies with second-rate casts. George is a charming and handsome gay man who is adept at latching on to almost anyone he wishes to "catch," and Irene is a brilliant, sophisticated matron who is the primary figure in the company's business dealings.
(11) Tommy Gill is an obnoxious and arrogant second-rate comic actor who is entirely amoral but gains more fame than he deserves by becoming the unwilling victim of screen beatings administered hilariously by Trudy's two small children. He hates them on screen and in real life.
(12) Melvin is a postman, thief and blackmailer who spends most of his spare time in an Indiana house of ill repute. If he can't procure a lady on a given night, he watches porn movies made by Grady. He robs the post office at which he works, tries to blackmail the Buntnagles because high society folks should not be involved even indirectly in pornography, and takes a train to L.A.. There, he tries to consummate both his blackmail plan and his incredible attraction to Trudy, with whom he has fallen in love after viewing her --- all of her --- in the porn films while he feverishly works on "pleasuring himself."
All characters aside for a moment, this review would be less than complete without mention (fittingly) of the climax --- because at that point, almost all the separate characters and plots do, in fact, come together(!). More specifically, they crash and smash together in a riotous event billed as a rally to raise funds for the US entry into World War I. The Buntnagles decide the rally would be a magnificent way to demonstrate their support for the war effort, as well as to pick up some nice publicity for their filmmaking enterprises. So they gather up all their B-movie pseudo-superstars to perform at the event and persuade many of the novel's other characters to assist in the effort. Great idea. Terrible execution. But the end result is a cleverly constructed denouement conceived by this extraordinarily clever author.
We have now accomplished the reviewer's task of describing the protagonists' strengths and flaws, and we've offered abbreviated plot lines for each of them. So you, dear reader, may wish to take on this wild, filthy, sexy, very witty novel. Or, of course, you may wish not to do so. But if the latter option --- to skip the whole darn daring escapade --- is your choice, I must point out that you will deny yourself a helluva wild ride, marvelous literary entertainment and excitement of all kinds, and an opportunity to read, enjoy and absorb a terrific piece of work by a supremely talented author.
And once again, despite Scott Phillips' noir reputation, THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN is indeed a devil of a novel --- in all of the funniest, filthiest and most devilish respects.
Reviewed by Jack Kramer
Though the beginning of the prologue reads a lot like that noir novel we're expecting, something soon feels amiss. Flavia Purcell, nee Ogden, who lives in Wichita, Kansas, in 1915, is angry at her husband for coming home late again, drunk as usual. She lets him know that she's talking to a divorce lawyer. He slaps her viciously and then apologizes. That doesn't work for Flavia. He immediately goes into the bedroom, pulls out his revolver and aims it directly at her. She then grabs a baseball bat that was a gift from her father and smashes him in the head with it. Blood splatters over everything, and he's dead.
This sure does look, feel and smell like noir. Yet the tone of the narration and the dialogue is almost light, and funny. Flavia is found innocent of any crime as it becomes obvious that she acted in self-defense. She is a free woman but has lost her job as a Latin teacher and probably any friends she has, since they all figure to be deathly afraid of her. So she writes to her grandfather in Los Angeles (she has no living parents) that she's leaving her home and would like him to take her in and teach her his occupation and his art --- photography.
Now the action moves swiftly forward in chapter one and begins the process of introducing the main characters. We realize quickly that they are as important to the story as Flavia. In fact, as the novel progresses, we learn that it has no single protagonist.
That’s not the only unusual feature of Phillips' book. We'll return to the character descriptions below, but first, I must insert my recommendation. Yes, I enthusiastically recommend THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN, especially for fans of the noir genre. It's humorous and action-packed; it "boasts" much violence and many deaths; its narrative technique is superb; its dialogue is witty; and it somehow projects an extraordinarily accurate feeling of and for its time. As I read, I felt that had I been an aspiring movie star or executive in 1915, I would have exhibited the same language characteristics, the same vocabulary items, the same kinds of phrases and memes, and the same remarkably expressive linguistic sensibilities as the characters here. The entire set of sounds and pictures jumping off the pages made me feel amazingly as if I were living in that time and place and observing in person the wonderfully crazy characters who people the novel.
Yet there's a big "BUT" here. Enthusiastic recommendation notwithstanding, I must issue a reservation. Actually, a warning. If a given reader is offended by "dirty" language, downright smutty sexual descriptions and behaviors, frank and explicit discussions, and descriptions of sexual acts of virtually every variety, please pass on this novel. As a matter of fact, you might want to skip the rest of this review because there's no way you'll get past the first few pages of the book without feeling that you'd like to censor it or burn it and maybe deport the author to some faraway land.
However, if you're not "turned off" by all those elements of the novel, you'll love it.
So we arrive at our detailed yet abbreviated descriptions of some of the characters and their respective, but certainly not respectable, stories, presented in more or less chronological order as they appear in the book.
(1) Flavia is introduced first and remains important right to the very end.
(2) Bill is Flavia's skirt-chasing grandfather with whom she lives in L.A. after her escape from Wichita. This big-hearted and generous old guy is a superb photographer whose clientele ranges from rich old dowagers to producers of porn movies.
(3) Purity Dove, whose real name is Myrna, is a wannabe film heroine whose budding movie career is stymied by terrible teeth and a misshapen jaw. Bill takes her photos gratis and sends her for free dental work to a shady but competent dentist who owes him money. She is soon on her way to becoming a B-list movie starlet.
(4) Jack Strong, Myrna's ex-boyfriend, is a real no-good-nik. He rapes a girl and spends the rest of the novel in jail.
(5) Grady is a porn film producer and director whose movies are beyond shameless and very, very naked.
(6) Victoria is a sort-of porn actress who is bubbly, talkative and sincerely affectionate. She somehow projects true innocence despite her unusually smutty occupation.
(7) Trudy is Victoria's lover both in the movies and eventually in real life. She's smart and strong, and she radiates porn movie beauty.
(8) Henry, a bright, young, relatively innocent guy who rides the roof of a boxcar to get to California, is hired by Bill to learn and practice the photographic arts and turns out to be the perfect lover for Flavia.
(9) Ezra, the baddest of the book's many bad guys, had abandoned Trudy while she was giving birth to a baby who did not survive. They had two other children whom Ezra, of course, had also abandoned, ostensibly to find a way to make more money to support the family. (Incidentally, the two children become important characters toward the end of the novel.) But many months go by, and he does not return, so Trudy takes the children to live in L.A., and Ezra is determined to find them. Since leaving his family, his habits have included robbing whomever he can, brutally murdering anyone who disagrees with him about anything, and beating or killing anyone he considers unlikable.
Like all the important characters, Ezra will live in L.A., a particularly excellent place to attack people with his claw-end hammer. However, he does perform one heroic deed. He had joined Henry on top of the boxcar, and when they reached Bakersfield and exited the train, an old, drunken hobo had caught Henry from behind, sliced a cut in the back of the kid's neck, and demanded Henry's rucksack with all his possessions in it. Ezra saw the incident unfolding and attacked the hobo with his brutal hammer. Then he slit the drunk's neck from ear to ear. A true hero. And that serves as our introduction to Ezra.
(10) The Buntnagles, George and Irene, are a wealthy couple who buy out Grady's company, though he continues to produce and direct porn films for his new employers while they move on to making comedies with second-rate casts. George is a charming and handsome gay man who is adept at latching on to almost anyone he wishes to "catch," and Irene is a brilliant, sophisticated matron who is the primary figure in the company's business dealings.
(11) Tommy Gill is an obnoxious and arrogant second-rate comic actor who is entirely amoral but gains more fame than he deserves by becoming the unwilling victim of screen beatings administered hilariously by Trudy's two small children. He hates them on screen and in real life.
(12) Melvin is a postman, thief and blackmailer who spends most of his spare time in an Indiana house of ill repute. If he can't procure a lady on a given night, he watches porn movies made by Grady. He robs the post office at which he works, tries to blackmail the Buntnagles because high society folks should not be involved even indirectly in pornography, and takes a train to L.A.. There, he tries to consummate both his blackmail plan and his incredible attraction to Trudy, with whom he has fallen in love after viewing her --- all of her --- in the porn films while he feverishly works on "pleasuring himself."
All characters aside for a moment, this review would be less than complete without mention (fittingly) of the climax --- because at that point, almost all the separate characters and plots do, in fact, come together(!). More specifically, they crash and smash together in a riotous event billed as a rally to raise funds for the US entry into World War I. The Buntnagles decide the rally would be a magnificent way to demonstrate their support for the war effort, as well as to pick up some nice publicity for their filmmaking enterprises. So they gather up all their B-movie pseudo-superstars to perform at the event and persuade many of the novel's other characters to assist in the effort. Great idea. Terrible execution. But the end result is a cleverly constructed denouement conceived by this extraordinarily clever author.
We have now accomplished the reviewer's task of describing the protagonists' strengths and flaws, and we've offered abbreviated plot lines for each of them. So you, dear reader, may wish to take on this wild, filthy, sexy, very witty novel. Or, of course, you may wish not to do so. But if the latter option --- to skip the whole darn daring escapade --- is your choice, I must point out that you will deny yourself a helluva wild ride, marvelous literary entertainment and excitement of all kinds, and an opportunity to read, enjoy and absorb a terrific piece of work by a supremely talented author.
And once again, despite Scott Phillips' noir reputation, THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN is indeed a devil of a novel --- in all of the funniest, filthiest and most devilish respects.
Reviewed by Jack Kramer
September 15, 2024
The title and cover art of THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN suggest that the reader is about to embark on another Scott Phillips noir novel. At the bottom of the scene on the cover is a smoking pistol belching a black miasma that envelops a night-time view of a large, perhaps crime-ridden city neighborhood. But by the time we arrive at chapter two, barely six pages in, we suspect that the artist and the novelist are playing tricks on us.
Though the beginning of the prologue reads a lot like that noir novel we're expecting, something soon feels amiss. Flavia Purcell, nee Ogden, who lives in Wichita, Kansas, in 1915, is angry at her husband for coming home late again, drunk as usual. She lets him know that she's talking to a divorce lawyer. He slaps her viciously and then apologizes. That doesn't work for Flavia. He immediately goes into the bedroom, pulls out his revolver and aims it directly at her. She then grabs a baseball bat that was a gift from her father and smashes him in the head with it. Blood splatters over everything, and he's dead.
This sure does look, feel and smell like noir. Yet the tone of the narration and the dialogue is almost light, and funny. Flavia is found innocent of any crime as it becomes obvious that she acted in self-defense. She is a free woman but has lost her job as a Latin teacher and probably any friends she has, since they all figure to be deathly afraid of her. So she writes to her grandfather in Los Angeles (she has no living parents) that she's leaving her home and would like him to take her in and teach her his occupation and his art --- photography.
Now the action moves swiftly forward in chapter one and begins the process of introducing the main characters. We realize quickly that they are as important to the story as Flavia. In fact, as the novel progresses, we learn that it has no single protagonist.
That’s not the only unusual feature of Phillips' book. We'll return to the character descriptions below, but first, I must insert my recommendation. Yes, I enthusiastically recommend THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN, especially for fans of the noir genre. It's humorous and action-packed; it "boasts" much violence and many deaths; its narrative technique is superb; its dialogue is witty; and it somehow projects an extraordinarily accurate feeling of and for its time. As I read, I felt that had I been an aspiring movie star or executive in 1915, I would have exhibited the same language characteristics, the same vocabulary items, the same kinds of phrases and memes, and the same remarkably expressive linguistic sensibilities as the characters here. The entire set of sounds and pictures jumping off the pages made me feel amazingly as if I were living in that time and place and observing in person the wonderfully crazy characters who people the novel.
Yet there's a big "BUT" here. Enthusiastic recommendation notwithstanding, I must issue a reservation. Actually, a warning. If a given reader is offended by "dirty" language, downright smutty sexual descriptions and behaviors, frank and explicit discussions, and descriptions of sexual acts of virtually every variety, please pass on this novel. As a matter of fact, you might want to skip the rest of this review because there's no way you'll get past the first few pages of the book without feeling that you'd like to censor it or burn it and maybe deport the author to some faraway land.
However, if you're not "turned off" by all those elements of the novel, you'll love it.
So we arrive at our detailed yet abbreviated descriptions of some of the characters and their respective, but certainly not respectable, stories, presented in more or less chronological order as they appear in the book.
(1) Flavia is introduced first and remains important right to the very end.
(2) Bill is Flavia's skirt-chasing grandfather with whom she lives in L.A. after her escape from Wichita. This big-hearted and generous old guy is a superb photographer whose clientele ranges from rich old dowagers to producers of porn movies.
(3) Purity Dove, whose real name is Myrna, is a wannabe film heroine whose budding movie career is stymied by terrible teeth and a misshapen jaw. Bill takes her photos gratis and sends her for free dental work to a shady but competent dentist who owes him money. She is soon on her way to becoming a B-list movie starlet.
(4) Jack Strong, Myrna's ex-boyfriend, is a real no-good-nik. He rapes a girl and spends the rest of the novel in jail.
(5) Grady is a porn film producer and director whose movies are beyond shameless and very, very naked.
(6) Victoria is a sort-of porn actress who is bubbly, talkative and sincerely affectionate. She somehow projects true innocence despite her unusually smutty occupation.
(7) Trudy is Victoria's lover both in the movies and eventually in real life. She's smart and strong, and she radiates porn movie beauty.
(8) Henry, a bright, young, relatively innocent guy who rides the roof of a boxcar to get to California, is hired by Bill to learn and practice the photographic arts and turns out to be the perfect lover for Flavia.
(9) Ezra, the baddest of the book's many bad guys, had abandoned Trudy while she was giving birth to a baby who did not survive. They had two other children whom Ezra, of course, had also abandoned, ostensibly to find a way to make more money to support the family. (Incidentally, the two children become important characters toward the end of the novel.) But many months go by, and he does not return, so Trudy takes the children to live in L.A., and Ezra is determined to find them. Since leaving his family, his habits have included robbing whomever he can, brutally murdering anyone who disagrees with him about anything, and beating or killing anyone he considers unlikable.
Like all the important characters, Ezra will live in L.A., a particularly excellent place to attack people with his claw-end hammer. However, he does perform one heroic deed. He had joined Henry on top of the boxcar, and when they reached Bakersfield and exited the train, an old, drunken hobo had caught Henry from behind, sliced a cut in the back of the kid's neck, and demanded Henry's rucksack with all his possessions in it. Ezra saw the incident unfolding and attacked the hobo with his brutal hammer. Then he slit the drunk's neck from ear to ear. A true hero. And that serves as our introduction to Ezra.
(10) The Buntnagles, George and Irene, are a wealthy couple who buy out Grady's company, though he continues to produce and direct porn films for his new employers while they move on to making comedies with second-rate casts. George is a charming and handsome gay man who is adept at latching on to almost anyone he wishes to "catch," and Irene is a brilliant, sophisticated matron who is the primary figure in the company's business dealings.
(11) Tommy Gill is an obnoxious and arrogant second-rate comic actor who is entirely amoral but gains more fame than he deserves by becoming the unwilling victim of screen beatings administered hilariously by Trudy's two small children. He hates them on screen and in real life.
(12) Melvin is a postman, thief and blackmailer who spends most of his spare time in an Indiana house of ill repute. If he can't procure a lady on a given night, he watches porn movies made by Grady. He robs the post office at which he works, tries to blackmail the Buntnagles because high society folks should not be involved even indirectly in pornography, and takes a train to L.A.. There, he tries to consummate both his blackmail plan and his incredible attraction to Trudy, with whom he has fallen in love after viewing her --- all of her --- in the porn films while he feverishly works on "pleasuring himself."
All characters aside for a moment, this review would be less than complete without mention (fittingly) of the climax --- because at that point, almost all the separate characters and plots do, in fact, come together(!). More specifically, they crash and smash together in a riotous event billed as a rally to raise funds for the US entry into World War I. The Buntnagles decide the rally would be a magnificent way to demonstrate their support for the war effort, as well as to pick up some nice publicity for their filmmaking enterprises. So they gather up all their B-movie pseudo-superstars to perform at the event and persuade many of the novel's other characters to assist in the effort. Great idea. Terrible execution. But the end result is a cleverly constructed denouement conceived by this extraordinarily clever author.
We have now accomplished the reviewer's task of describing the protagonists' strengths and flaws, and we've offered abbreviated plot lines for each of them. So you, dear reader, may wish to take on this wild, filthy, sexy, very witty novel. Or, of course, you may wish not to do so. But if the latter option --- to skip the whole darn daring escapade --- is your choice, I must point out that you will deny yourself a helluva wild ride, marvelous literary entertainment and excitement of all kinds, and an opportunity to read, enjoy and absorb a terrific piece of work by a supremely talented author.
And once again, despite Scott Phillips' noir reputation, THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN is indeed a devil of a novel --- in all of the funniest, filthiest and most devilish respects.
Reviewed by Jack Kramer
Though the beginning of the prologue reads a lot like that noir novel we're expecting, something soon feels amiss. Flavia Purcell, nee Ogden, who lives in Wichita, Kansas, in 1915, is angry at her husband for coming home late again, drunk as usual. She lets him know that she's talking to a divorce lawyer. He slaps her viciously and then apologizes. That doesn't work for Flavia. He immediately goes into the bedroom, pulls out his revolver and aims it directly at her. She then grabs a baseball bat that was a gift from her father and smashes him in the head with it. Blood splatters over everything, and he's dead.
This sure does look, feel and smell like noir. Yet the tone of the narration and the dialogue is almost light, and funny. Flavia is found innocent of any crime as it becomes obvious that she acted in self-defense. She is a free woman but has lost her job as a Latin teacher and probably any friends she has, since they all figure to be deathly afraid of her. So she writes to her grandfather in Los Angeles (she has no living parents) that she's leaving her home and would like him to take her in and teach her his occupation and his art --- photography.
Now the action moves swiftly forward in chapter one and begins the process of introducing the main characters. We realize quickly that they are as important to the story as Flavia. In fact, as the novel progresses, we learn that it has no single protagonist.
That’s not the only unusual feature of Phillips' book. We'll return to the character descriptions below, but first, I must insert my recommendation. Yes, I enthusiastically recommend THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN, especially for fans of the noir genre. It's humorous and action-packed; it "boasts" much violence and many deaths; its narrative technique is superb; its dialogue is witty; and it somehow projects an extraordinarily accurate feeling of and for its time. As I read, I felt that had I been an aspiring movie star or executive in 1915, I would have exhibited the same language characteristics, the same vocabulary items, the same kinds of phrases and memes, and the same remarkably expressive linguistic sensibilities as the characters here. The entire set of sounds and pictures jumping off the pages made me feel amazingly as if I were living in that time and place and observing in person the wonderfully crazy characters who people the novel.
Yet there's a big "BUT" here. Enthusiastic recommendation notwithstanding, I must issue a reservation. Actually, a warning. If a given reader is offended by "dirty" language, downright smutty sexual descriptions and behaviors, frank and explicit discussions, and descriptions of sexual acts of virtually every variety, please pass on this novel. As a matter of fact, you might want to skip the rest of this review because there's no way you'll get past the first few pages of the book without feeling that you'd like to censor it or burn it and maybe deport the author to some faraway land.
However, if you're not "turned off" by all those elements of the novel, you'll love it.
So we arrive at our detailed yet abbreviated descriptions of some of the characters and their respective, but certainly not respectable, stories, presented in more or less chronological order as they appear in the book.
(1) Flavia is introduced first and remains important right to the very end.
(2) Bill is Flavia's skirt-chasing grandfather with whom she lives in L.A. after her escape from Wichita. This big-hearted and generous old guy is a superb photographer whose clientele ranges from rich old dowagers to producers of porn movies.
(3) Purity Dove, whose real name is Myrna, is a wannabe film heroine whose budding movie career is stymied by terrible teeth and a misshapen jaw. Bill takes her photos gratis and sends her for free dental work to a shady but competent dentist who owes him money. She is soon on her way to becoming a B-list movie starlet.
(4) Jack Strong, Myrna's ex-boyfriend, is a real no-good-nik. He rapes a girl and spends the rest of the novel in jail.
(5) Grady is a porn film producer and director whose movies are beyond shameless and very, very naked.
(6) Victoria is a sort-of porn actress who is bubbly, talkative and sincerely affectionate. She somehow projects true innocence despite her unusually smutty occupation.
(7) Trudy is Victoria's lover both in the movies and eventually in real life. She's smart and strong, and she radiates porn movie beauty.
(8) Henry, a bright, young, relatively innocent guy who rides the roof of a boxcar to get to California, is hired by Bill to learn and practice the photographic arts and turns out to be the perfect lover for Flavia.
(9) Ezra, the baddest of the book's many bad guys, had abandoned Trudy while she was giving birth to a baby who did not survive. They had two other children whom Ezra, of course, had also abandoned, ostensibly to find a way to make more money to support the family. (Incidentally, the two children become important characters toward the end of the novel.) But many months go by, and he does not return, so Trudy takes the children to live in L.A., and Ezra is determined to find them. Since leaving his family, his habits have included robbing whomever he can, brutally murdering anyone who disagrees with him about anything, and beating or killing anyone he considers unlikable.
Like all the important characters, Ezra will live in L.A., a particularly excellent place to attack people with his claw-end hammer. However, he does perform one heroic deed. He had joined Henry on top of the boxcar, and when they reached Bakersfield and exited the train, an old, drunken hobo had caught Henry from behind, sliced a cut in the back of the kid's neck, and demanded Henry's rucksack with all his possessions in it. Ezra saw the incident unfolding and attacked the hobo with his brutal hammer. Then he slit the drunk's neck from ear to ear. A true hero. And that serves as our introduction to Ezra.
(10) The Buntnagles, George and Irene, are a wealthy couple who buy out Grady's company, though he continues to produce and direct porn films for his new employers while they move on to making comedies with second-rate casts. George is a charming and handsome gay man who is adept at latching on to almost anyone he wishes to "catch," and Irene is a brilliant, sophisticated matron who is the primary figure in the company's business dealings.
(11) Tommy Gill is an obnoxious and arrogant second-rate comic actor who is entirely amoral but gains more fame than he deserves by becoming the unwilling victim of screen beatings administered hilariously by Trudy's two small children. He hates them on screen and in real life.
(12) Melvin is a postman, thief and blackmailer who spends most of his spare time in an Indiana house of ill repute. If he can't procure a lady on a given night, he watches porn movies made by Grady. He robs the post office at which he works, tries to blackmail the Buntnagles because high society folks should not be involved even indirectly in pornography, and takes a train to L.A.. There, he tries to consummate both his blackmail plan and his incredible attraction to Trudy, with whom he has fallen in love after viewing her --- all of her --- in the porn films while he feverishly works on "pleasuring himself."
All characters aside for a moment, this review would be less than complete without mention (fittingly) of the climax --- because at that point, almost all the separate characters and plots do, in fact, come together(!). More specifically, they crash and smash together in a riotous event billed as a rally to raise funds for the US entry into World War I. The Buntnagles decide the rally would be a magnificent way to demonstrate their support for the war effort, as well as to pick up some nice publicity for their filmmaking enterprises. So they gather up all their B-movie pseudo-superstars to perform at the event and persuade many of the novel's other characters to assist in the effort. Great idea. Terrible execution. But the end result is a cleverly constructed denouement conceived by this extraordinarily clever author.
We have now accomplished the reviewer's task of describing the protagonists' strengths and flaws, and we've offered abbreviated plot lines for each of them. So you, dear reader, may wish to take on this wild, filthy, sexy, very witty novel. Or, of course, you may wish not to do so. But if the latter option --- to skip the whole darn daring escapade --- is your choice, I must point out that you will deny yourself a helluva wild ride, marvelous literary entertainment and excitement of all kinds, and an opportunity to read, enjoy and absorb a terrific piece of work by a supremely talented author.
And once again, despite Scott Phillips' noir reputation, THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN is indeed a devil of a novel --- in all of the funniest, filthiest and most devilish respects.
Reviewed by Jack Kramer
October 13, 2024
Oh, man. I really wanted to love this one more. The dialogue is fantastic! But there are so many characters, I had a hard time getting used to all the head jumping. I get the impression that "The Devil Raises His Own" would make fabulous movie with an ensemble cast, but as a novel it lacks narrative.
October 9, 2024
I liked it, but it was a very episodic story, with probably too many characters. Not as hardboiled as some of Phillips' other novels.
June 1, 2024
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Soho Press for an advance copy this thriller set in the nascent days of the Hollywood film industry both above and underground, and the dreamers, schemers, innocents and psychos who tried to make they way in this new world of entertainment.
Louis Daguerre presented his idea of daguerreotypes, the first practical photography process in 1839 and within a few short months, Parisians could purchase photos of nude models. This is common in most technology dealing with the entertainment world. The first movie that could be considered pornography was made, again in Paris in 1896. And as this made money, other people took notice, and soon movies, considered stag films became the thing. These movies played in smokers, where groups of men would gather, drink and smoke cigars set up in industry that made lots of money for certain people for years. The Devil Raises His Own by Scott Phillips is a thriller set in Los Angles at a time the film industry was starting to take a hold on America, with a darker industry just below the surface. Industries that attracted dreamers, and dangerous people all wanting a chance to grab the brass ring of success.
The book takes place before the First World War in the city of Los Angeles, where the film industry was just getting going, and people were coming to forget their past, and start anew. Or get revenge. Bill Ogden has been many things in his life. Now in his 70's he is semi-retired from his photography business, taking photos that interest him, helping others, and maybe doing a little glamour photography for a few bucks. Ogden shares his business with his granddaughter Flavia, who had to leave home after defending herself from her drunken husband, and a gun. They are joined by young man full of energy and an interest in learning the film trade, as anything has to be better than digging coal, and a young starlet, with dreams of making it in films. Across town a director down on his luck has ideas of making a studio to make blue or stag movies, with proper lighting, better cameras, and he might have found the star to take him to the next level. Rounding this off is Ezra a drifter with a temper, looking for his wife and children, whose paths cross many of these characters lives, sometimes not in good ways.
A novel about Los Angeles, film, darkness and the evil that humans are capable of, and the lengths that many will go to to be free. The book is written as almost vignettes with characters wandering around, bumping into others, before going back to their own adventures, until the final chapters. The POV switches between characters, lots of characters, but Phillips is a very good writer and never loses the reader, nor confuses. This is a really powerful story with a lot of scenes that might disturb people, but is really quite good, interesting and very different. I enjoyed the look behind the curtain. Phillips does a very good job of capturing the era, and the place. Ogden is a good guy, interesting, loyal, funny, and with an infinite capacity to find himself in the right place at wrong time, or vice-versa. The story moves well, and the multiple plots all come together quite well in a very satisfying, violent end.
Louis Daguerre presented his idea of daguerreotypes, the first practical photography process in 1839 and within a few short months, Parisians could purchase photos of nude models. This is common in most technology dealing with the entertainment world. The first movie that could be considered pornography was made, again in Paris in 1896. And as this made money, other people took notice, and soon movies, considered stag films became the thing. These movies played in smokers, where groups of men would gather, drink and smoke cigars set up in industry that made lots of money for certain people for years. The Devil Raises His Own by Scott Phillips is a thriller set in Los Angles at a time the film industry was starting to take a hold on America, with a darker industry just below the surface. Industries that attracted dreamers, and dangerous people all wanting a chance to grab the brass ring of success.
The book takes place before the First World War in the city of Los Angeles, where the film industry was just getting going, and people were coming to forget their past, and start anew. Or get revenge. Bill Ogden has been many things in his life. Now in his 70's he is semi-retired from his photography business, taking photos that interest him, helping others, and maybe doing a little glamour photography for a few bucks. Ogden shares his business with his granddaughter Flavia, who had to leave home after defending herself from her drunken husband, and a gun. They are joined by young man full of energy and an interest in learning the film trade, as anything has to be better than digging coal, and a young starlet, with dreams of making it in films. Across town a director down on his luck has ideas of making a studio to make blue or stag movies, with proper lighting, better cameras, and he might have found the star to take him to the next level. Rounding this off is Ezra a drifter with a temper, looking for his wife and children, whose paths cross many of these characters lives, sometimes not in good ways.
A novel about Los Angeles, film, darkness and the evil that humans are capable of, and the lengths that many will go to to be free. The book is written as almost vignettes with characters wandering around, bumping into others, before going back to their own adventures, until the final chapters. The POV switches between characters, lots of characters, but Phillips is a very good writer and never loses the reader, nor confuses. This is a really powerful story with a lot of scenes that might disturb people, but is really quite good, interesting and very different. I enjoyed the look behind the curtain. Phillips does a very good job of capturing the era, and the place. Ogden is a good guy, interesting, loyal, funny, and with an infinite capacity to find himself in the right place at wrong time, or vice-versa. The story moves well, and the multiple plots all come together quite well in a very satisfying, violent end.
May 21, 2024
From the sexually explicit frescos of ancient Pompeii to today’s risqué sites, pornographers have always embraced the latest technology to create and distribute their erotic materials. In 1916 Los Angeles, the new tool was the motion-picture camera. Phillips’s noir novel offers a bawdy, violent, funny, and affectionate fictional take on how the “blue movie” industry developed in the shadow of a budding Hollywood. Years after the events of Cottonwood and Hop Alley, photographer Bill Ogden, now in his 70s, has opened a portrait studio in the City of Angels. He is assisted by his granddaughter Flavia, who came to California for a fresh start after fatally bludgeoning (in self-defense) her abusive husband, and naive 20-year-old Henry Seghers, who fled the coal mines of West Virginia. Bill’s business is legit but he occasionally takes stereoscopic stills of naughty sapphic/homosexual productions overseen by George Buntnagel, a gay director moonlighting from Provident Studios, and his lesbian wife, Irene. Revolving around these well-drawn central characters is a colorful supporting cast: aspiring actress Purity Dove-turned-film star Magnolia Sweetspire; homicidal ex-con Ezra seeking his missing family; Ezra’s wife, Trudy, who supports her two children by working in stag films; comedian Tommy Gill, who is not as funny as he thinks he is; and ex-postal inspector Melvin van de Kamp, who is desperate to break into the adult-movie business. Phillips’s narrative gradually connects these diverse personalities in a series of fast-paced alternating scenes until they collide in a violent Day of the Locust climax. With its high body count (at least seven deaths) and ribald language, this scandalously juicy tale of early Hollywood will appeal more to Fatty Arbuckle devotees than demure Mary Pickford fans. From my review in First Clue: https://mailchi.mp/firstcluereviews/b...
October 26, 2024
I thought I was going to like this book more than I did but it was enjoyable. I liked the characters, Bill Ogden apparently is a character in other novels by Phillips and he is a great part of the story. His granddaughter Flavia after bludgeoning her abusive spouse joins him in LA to work in his photography studio. I like reading about early LA and this novel explores the early movie work specifically early pornographers who were exploiting the film opportunities alongside tamer early film days. The characters were well developed and their relationships were believable. I may read other Phillips novels, this was gritty and some characters were pretty hard boiled so I am wanting to see how other Phillips novels are.
July 17, 2024
Scott Phillips takes Bill Ogden, protagonist of Cottonwood, and transports him years and miles away for this new novel, The Devil Raises His Own. Phillips also adds a huge cast of scoundrels, strivers, and schemes to make things interesting. This mosaic of a novel roams through all kinds of dingy corners of World War I-era Los Angeles to deliver brutal tales of comeuppance and acceptance...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
September 29, 2025
what an odd book. I’m confident I missed things and that’s why there are places I’m scratching my head. the core of the story is about the start of the video porn business. you’ve got actresses and actors, photographers and videographers, people funding the business etc. my favorite storyline was Flavia bill and Henry except I don’t know if I agree with bill shooting Henry in the leg so he couldn’t go off to the war. other than that, justice seemed served everywhere else. Ezra and the creepy postal man and Tommy all ended up dead like they deserved
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 13, 2024
Phillips Does it Again
I’ve read all of Scott Phillips books and each one is a 5 star read. The Devil Raises his Own is no different. Set in Hollywood in 1915 this book is about the burgeoning dirty movie business, sex , violence , history and the like. Phillips writes so well with a laconic style reminiscent of Willeford and Leonard-which is high praise indeed. Just read it and enjoy.
I’ve read all of Scott Phillips books and each one is a 5 star read. The Devil Raises his Own is no different. Set in Hollywood in 1915 this book is about the burgeoning dirty movie business, sex , violence , history and the like. Phillips writes so well with a laconic style reminiscent of Willeford and Leonard-which is high praise indeed. Just read it and enjoy.
August 18, 2024
I'm a Scott Phillips fan but this is a meandering mess. What is the point? The book starts off well, but it seemed like the author had a quota of how many characters he could put in a book, and he did his best to meet it. Unfortunately, this just leads to chaos and confusion and the author spends the rest of the book trying to get it back on track and pointed to what was really a very anti climatic ending. Very average at best.
April 27, 2025
A dark look at Hollywood just prior to WW2. Mr. Phillips has assembled a cast of good and bad, and then really bad characters and tells their stories in the city of sin and excess. There are some bad endings and some good endings and it seems that life goes on, and for many of the characters, it goes on in another town, away from Hollywood.
May 5, 2025
I barely held on to finish this one. The little stories were interesting, but I kept looking for the plot. I was over halfway through and still trying to figure out how these people and their stories fit together. It felt like the author wanted to write a book with some naughty parts, didn't have a full story, but wrote it anyway.
April 12, 2024
Pungent, witty, and fast-paced. A ripping good classic Hollywood noir that balances the nostalgia nicely with the grit and leavens everything with whip-smart dialogue. Phillips did his research, but in a way that makes this feel lived-in and not like homework.
September 3, 2024
1916 Hollywood. A charismatic photographer links the paths of a psycho killer, a fledgling porn movie studio, the rise and fall of a silent movie comedy king and a woman who detaches herself from a life of sorrow and embraces life. The Devil Raises his Own is pretty damn good.
September 13, 2024
If you enjoyed DEADWOOD, BOARDWALK EMPIRE or THE DEUCE, then pick up Scott Phillips' THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN. It hilariously dives into the origins of Hollywood "porn" and Tinseltown's debauchery, but it's the characters that shine like wet spit on a dirty sidewalk.
January 15, 2025
Hollywood 1915. Really not a mystery but a semi-serious novel about the beginnings of the dirty movie business. Large cast of characters none of whom you'll want to nominate for sainthood. Parts are cute, parts are funny, parts are ugly, parts are sweet. I did like it -- 3 stars.
March 2, 2025
I keep reading Phillips hoping he'll return to the greatness of his first novel released in 2000, "The Ice Harvest" only to be disappointed. This is more likely a shortcoming on my part as a reader with marrow expectations than Phillips' as a writer.
October 15, 2025
Course, sex focussed humour and a fine, natural flow to this tale. It’s the early days of smut, blue movies, abuse of would-be starlets from rural America and the dawn of child-stars with the rise of powerful movie studios in LA. Funny and sadly, worldly and all too real sounding, stuff!
October 2, 2024
Terrific ; great characters, great story . Very glad I read it!!
November 5, 2024
This is the worst book I have read all year.
December 5, 2024
Pointlessly trashy
Inartful, predictable, unnecessarily fragmented. Characters are stereotypical. Old Hollywood is missing - a few place names don't make it real.
Inartful, predictable, unnecessarily fragmented. Characters are stereotypical. Old Hollywood is missing - a few place names don't make it real.
December 31, 2024
I was confused for a lot of this but I liked it
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