Play The Devil

by Scott Laudati

Play The Devil is the debut novel from Scott Laudati. A semi-autobiographical tale of two best friends traversing the backyards of New Jersey in search of the American Dream. Like a 200 page Bruce Springsteen song, Play The Devil is permeated by a sense of nostalgia and loss, of love and redemption, with images of old Americana littering the novel like scenes from a movie, it is the coming-of-age story for the next generation.

223 pages, Paperback

Published September 13, 2021

About the author

Scott Laudati lives in NYC with his boxer, Satine. He is the author of Bone House, Play The Devil, CAMP WINAPOOKA, and Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair. His poetry and essays have been published by Columbia University, X-R-A-Y, Litro Magazine, New Pop Lit, The Bitter Oleander, Fjords Review, The Stockholm Review, The Adirondack Review, and many others. Visit him anywhere @scottlaudati

Reviews

[Brian Bowyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic!

My first read from Laudati, but certainly not my last. PLAY THE DEVIL is a fast, beautifully-written novel filled with loss, nostalgia, and redemption.
Here's an excerpt in which the narrator walks into a club:
The sun followed me through the door and lit up the bottles behind the bar like little diamonds were floating inside of them. It gave me that feeling a kid gets staring at rainbow colored candy. Booze is like candy for adults, I realized. It’s our reward for getting through things that suck.
And here's the narrator giving a kid some baseball pointers:
​“Are you this angry at school?” I asked him. ​
“I hate school. I want to take one of my dad’s guns and kill everyone.” ​
“Well, you’re never going to grow out of that. But you want to be a baseball player, right?” ​
“Yeah.” ​
“Then shut up and give me your mitt."
PLAY THE DEVIL is simply an amazing debut novel, and I'm looking forward to more from Scott Laudati. Highly recommended!

[Paige Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our anti-hero is a legal-speed freak, a college loaf named Londi who hits all the Hallmarks: Dropping out on Daddy’s dime multiple times, overpaying ghostwriters presumably for more time to masturbate (ten cups of coffee plus Addies, hello, what other urge will overtake you?). He’s got a guido bestie who likes to pick fights at the bat-saturated Home Depot and buy strange chemicals. There are food fights with cowboys and recruiting pool boys.

Everybody’s got cool names and funny banter. I especially like how the MC casually delineates relationships between men and women: Some guys want a gal born yesterday, other times a hungry cougar will do, and always there’s a social contract that crinkles when cranking burnies w/ the boss’ wife. Bad thoughts turn into actions in a blink, so you gotta keep your mind sharp while reading about dullards Mike Judge could’ve made. During literal blow-by-blows, the flow is impeccable, cadence streamy.

Corner boy chicken fights, so many problems that could be solved by lanais and shark-shaped chlorine floaters. Lots of political satire and inversion: Londi, the middle-age bitter 24y/o, pines for socialism, the slackers’ dreamscape, while he sleeps, smokes weed (and so doesn’t think about his novel he hasn’t written in six yrs) all on the first day of his buddy’s job (who of course does most of the work and driving). The world’s against him in the smallest interactions, a militant cop even helps an Arab gas attendant thieve from him. Once the boys get cooking (and snake fighting) w/ their pool venture, they remind me of Ed, Edd ‘n’ Eddy and that yellow Kool Aid exists. Wild. If there’s one thing I learned it’s that Girl Scouts and Bon Jovi need to be taken down a peg. This couldn’t be a Jersey book without mention of a shart attack or two. Shout out to Wawa (Philly book in the future 👀?) Yet it’s still poetic when it comes to greenery and relating weeds to dusty farmers you have more in common w/ than you think, threading every working class schlub into one greasy blanket.

Water beds, paint-balling Dominos boys, going toe to toe w/ Nazi war criminals to win the Queen of Jersey’s heart… It’s a memorable swim.

[Thom Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laudati has written a masterpiece, with the setting set in Jersey, you can feel the grime, sweat, and self loathing in the air. It's a love story but not in the way you would think. It's a book for the lost older millennial generation with no future, student loan debt, and a future of crap jobs. It's brilliantly funny and depressing but in a good way. This should be nominated for debut novel of the year and for the price you cannot beat it! I highly recommend this book if you want a thought provoking read that captures our modern times.

[Cody Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scott Laudati has written a book that is a barn burner of epic proportions, fast and bright and leaves you scorched and begging for more. His novel, Play the Devil, was one of the most fun reading experiences I’ve had in quite awhile, an absolutely rollicking good time. And not only was it a fun and quick read, but it also contains quite a bit of profound philosophical truth, one of which I keep returning to often—“I was starting to understand a universal irony—the world does not exist in the snow globe of a Robert Frost poem. The road less traveled ends in welfare checks and parking tickets. And the path that ‘is’ paved has you owing your parents for car payments and student loans the rest of your life. It’s how well you can bluff this awful hand that makes all the difference.” Wise words, and an eternal truth.

Play the Devil is a twenty-four hour snapshot of life, a picture of the banality and drudgery of the workday, a written record of the wreckage of life, of the working grind of a pool boy in New Jersey, and the marvelousness that is to be found in the most mundane experiences. Scott has found a way to capture the glory of smoking cigarettes in the early pre-dawn while on the way to a bullshit job, one you hate and wish you could avoid. He celebrates the tediousness of the plight of the working man, the boring reality of a pool boy, from changing filters, dragging out hoses and various chemicals, and finding dead animals in the pool trap. Who knew such fun could be had? A dead mammal found in the pool drain turns into a competition to see who can launch it up and over the pool owner’s house, and whoever launches it the furthest, well, they get last warm beer. If not for this novel, I would have never known the perils a pool boy faces, snakes, war criminals, vindictive teenage girls and their mothers, and the troubles that can be had when you light the cigarette of the boss’s wife’s cigarette.

There’s so much life and excitement packed into this slim volume that the book’s covers strain to contain it all.

Scott’s novel arrived in my life at just the right time, a period of deepening melancholy and the book brought the light back, and scattered the clouds of those gray days. I cannot thank him enough for writing such a fun and profound book, which turned out to be the perfect cure for summertime sadness.

[Scott Cumming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dazed and Confused for the college dropouts. Londi has dropped out and back into his parents house and his hometown. He's forced to work in order that he gets out from under his folks' noses and join his pal, Frankie Gunnz, as a pool boy traversing Jersey in order to get paid and get second date with his dream girl.

Amongst the pool cleaning, there is drinking, drugging, fucking around and finding out, eye-fucking the girls in bikinis or less and trying to figure out how to get from young manhood to the McMansions he sees before him.

This novel is a blast and flies by in a hail of narcotics. Is Londi having any epiphanies or is he merely stoned out his gourd the whole time?

This book feels like it for the ones who don't figure it out or luck into the everyday kind of life they've been taught about since school. Somebody's got to do the menial jobs and why shouldn't it be you? Not every dream can come true as trite as that sounds, but learning it is a helluva curve.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a page turner and you won't want to put it down until the end. A sort of coming of age story that most of us can relate to, but written much better than most of us could. Enjoy!

[Gahlia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"i wont sign this. nothing this good should end."

this book touches upon so many topics that it would be damn near impossible to mention them all, but here's my failed attempt anyway.

our hero drops out of college, he's not rich by any means so he's looking at a minimum wage day job with his slightly nutty best friend, Frankie. his parents aren't happy with his choices - so he gets cut off. he's constantly pining for this one girl who is supposed to be all that (she probably isn't, but love always disables brain) - very Waiting for Godot.

the characters are so well written that you can instantly assume they have a strong foundation in reality. the literary choices the author makes hit the mark every time - starting with the colorful supporting character, through the absurdly hilarious situations he throws the pair into and finally - the semi open end that leaves the reader...well, looking at the glass half full but still feeling thirsty for more.

this is a story about the socio-economic classes we're born into, and how landing in the wrong one effects you, probably for the rest of your life. about how forming and reforming an escape plan like a hamster on a wheel, almost feels easier than just accepting your sour fate and admitting defeat. this book will plug you right back into the depression you've shelved months or years ago, and what's more - you'll love it.

it will make you ponder your childhood - how you were raised, by whom, and how you got to the here and now. another really interesting aspect explored is the irreconcilable gap between the boomer generation and us 90's kids - we never stood a chance. they failed us, and then made us feel like we've failed them. this is a piece about raw disappointment, helplessness and emotion. it will take you back to the moment you've laid eyes on your first love. then it will make you question your worth, theirs, and the legitimacy of what was there in the first place.

in here, you can also find corporate america and how we think the law should be, vs. what it actually is. this book feels a little like home, like someone you used to know better than yourself, like that really painful lesson in the form of a scar that's never going to go away now.

if you've read this book and it made you think about pessimism - you've got it wrong. read it again. your life is only as horrible as you think it is.

i most definitely did not expect it to end the way it did, but maybe it's because i always expect to find a dead body floating in the water.

the writing is absolutely magnificent. scott laudati was born to write, and i hope he never stops.

[Shawn Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ll start with the mention that there are some slight spoilers in this review, but nothing major. I started this novel in early March and I was sold on the opening line, “Let me tell you about being a hero.”

However, I had to work early the next morning, and reading a book on a work night is the quickest cure for sleep deprivation other than a stiff drink or a six-pack of something strong, and at this point in my early thirties, I was trying to avoid the booze and weed. So I fell asleep reading the opening chapter of Scott Laudati’s “Play The Devil”, which told of a 24-year-old protagonist, Londi, who abandons his academic pursuits once more in hopes of finding the answers to life later. Intrigued, I’d come back to this, because as a three-time college dropout I was hoping Londi might learn something I had not. In the meantime, I had to cherish what time I had asleep, where I could visit my abandoned dreams for three or four hours every night. Five if I was truly lucky. A quote from that first chapter struck me like a sack of hard concrete reality, “Are You A Victim Of Adolescence?”, as I struggled to find the time to make it more than a few pages into a book I was thoroughly enjoying. Here I am, too tired to do something that I enjoy that I usually found relaxing.

I’d attempt the book again in late April and this time make it all the way to the end of second chapter, where the “hero”, a college dropout with a major in attitude and a minor in philosophy (arguably absent nihilism or left accelerationism; I can’t tell if Londi cares whether the world burns or if he’d rather see it burn quicker so he could avoid his duties) would rather drink and smoke and exist than have to work to earn his vices. It’s in this chapter his father demands he cleans the family pool, foreshadowing the personal hell to come for poor Londi. We’re introduced to Frankie Gunnz, a young Italian badass or asshole or both who adheres to a strict code not seen in Jersey since the 1950’s; this guy with an Italian flag tattooed between his shoulders invented the phrase “Fuck around and find out,” long before the next generation had discovered, and if you’ve pissed him off enough that his shirt was off, well, you’re about to find out. Somehow, Frankie has an incredible work ethic that is wasted on a terrible profession that he still treats like it’s the most respected position in New Jersey. That profession? That of a pool boy, and the company is looking for one more body to throw in the pool.

But alas, work got in the way once again. My three, maybe four hours of sleep quietly became two maybe three. Not only was I no longer reading regularly, I was no longer writing either. I had just become a little worker bee, buzzing around someone else’s hive, just to make ends meet and they never ended nor met. This is the third book I read this year. Last year I read forty-six. Last year I wrote full length two novels. This year I’ve written three pieces of flash fiction.

Two months later I finally had a week off to sit back and relax and enjoy a book, so I started “Play The Devil” over and once more it sucked me in. In the first three chapters we find out that Londi was determined to be a writer but wasn’t set on doing the legwork, and higher education seemed to be more a distraction than a solution. He drops out of college, expecting to be missed, only to find no one cares about some abject failure from New Jersey. Not even the family dog cares when Londi’s parents eject him from their home after a drunken night with an old flame. They tell him not to come back until he has a job, and with only a twenty-dollar bill to his name, he takes it as a challenge. It’s either this, or he could be stuck living in the 7/11 parking lot, begging for change, attention, and his youth back from anyone that’ll stop and share a beer and lend an ear like his old friends Lunchbox and Kurt had done. Kurt had just lost his job working with Frankie who now needed a new co-worker, and as Londi was crashing at Frankie’s, it only made sense to take him up on the offer. Very begrudgingly and after a night of partying, Londi accepts the job offer.

The next 24 hours we’re given a glimpse into the life of a suburban pool-boy that who knows he is mentally over-qualified for this hardly appreciated summer job, but he’s also far to lazy to apply himself to anything more fruitful. The next seventeen chapters all take place during a full shift at the company called ‘American Pools’, run by a sleazy man known only as The Boss from a shipping container inside a used car lot, guarded by starved Dobermans even though there isn’t much to steal there anyways other than some toxic chemicals and a beat up pick-up truck. The Boss tasks the two young men with nine different locations to visit and nine different swimming pools in different states of disrepair before they can call it a day. However, before they’ve even left the shop the highly unmotivated Londi is already considering how and when to quit this job. The “Wake-and-bake” session preceding work and between each job certainly did not act as a motivator for Londi, but somehow Frankie never lets anything slow him down.

Each job is broken up into various misanthropic tales of what becomes of your pool after a season of neglect and those brave enough to fix it for ten dollars an hour. The two of them are faced with the constant balancing act of looking like they’re working hard while hardly working. Each job introduces a new dilemma, be it a horrendously ungrateful customer or a horribly deformed swimming pool or both, and each solution never comes as easy as Frankie promises. The two of them have vastly different viewpoints on the situation at hand, but somehow, they manage to get through each task with a puff of weed and a brief drive to reflect on their lives between each job site.

The entire time I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think about my life. Londi is nine years younger than I am now, and I can’t help but see a bit of myself in this character. Except this book has an ending that is somewhat open-ended, and I can’t help but think my life ended a long time ago. What I loved about this book the most was how much it captured the hopelessness of being in your early twenties and finding out that this life we have to work hard for, we have to work hard another sixty years until we can enjoy it. And then our lives are over. What do we have to look forward to when sleep is but a piece of punctuation between each job, and each paycheck is just barely enough to earn the weed and booze we need to fall asleep. Any book that puts the reader in the protagonist’s shoes is gold in my eyes, and this book is damn shiny for that reason.

I’m writing this review with a beer in hand, and I am now convinced that I need to quit my job because I am wasting away and I will never be twenty-four again. This book is a powerful slice of life that makes me hate the nine-to-five almost as much as it makes me hate every unruly customer I’ve dealt with and will continue to deal with, but it also points out the futility of that mindset. I never felt like Londi was making great (let alone good) decisions in his day, but they felt like the real decisions a kid would make. A kid who could have had it all if only he cared enough to have it is no wiser than a spoiled brat with a trust fund, nor is the prior guaranteed to be happier than the latter just because he or she is job-free. However, I resonate more with the hopeless than I do the spoiled, and Londi resonates loudly with the many mistakes he makes in his first day on the job.

Throughout the story there are hints at a larger world that I’m sure the author could revisit and expand upon, but he doesn’t need to. There are so many colorful characters that flesh out these New Jersey suburbs that the environment feels so real you can smell the chlorine and cow shit. They never take the stage for too long to distract you from the protagonists’ agony, but they stick around just long enough to leave an impression. There’s Ralphie, the drunken cop brother-in-law of The Boss who cleans pools for a little extra cash and spends more time mucking up the mucky pools or sleeping near them than working. Lunchbox and Kurt reminded me of Jay and Silent Bob from another New Jersey native’s imagination. There is El Diablo, the pool shark, but not that kind of pool. There is a horny housewife, validating those rumors about the pool boy profession. There’s a group of rich Jersey shore socialites, a war criminal, a rival pool-cleaning company, and even the girls of high school legend all grown up. I don’t know this for sure, but I’d be willing to bet that most of these people are not just figments of Laudati’s imagination but based on very real, not-so-great people.

But just because these people aren’t upstanding citizens, doesn’t mean they’re not real. Even if they are but Scott’s creations, I felt like I’ve met a variant of every character in this book. Even The Beard seemed like someone I regretted knowing back in high school and would still avoid were I to ever go back to my hometown.

I won’t spoil the ending, but by the end of Londi’s horrible day, I felt like he was a hero even if he never meant to be. Maybe that’s because this book made me realize that I’m trading my precious time for a weekly chunk of change. I feel like I am a good example of where this character would go if he was forced to work this same job for another decade, and that does not make me feel good about myself. No, this book inspires me to work on myself instead of working for someone else, and I really appreciated that about “Play The Devil” by Scott Laudati. It makes me feel hopeful knowing Londi got out, and if he can, maybe I can too. His novel reads like a long, sad poem that reminds me to not lose track of the remaining daylight hours left, and instead of smoking myself to sleep I should use those night hours to pursue the dreams I thought I abandoned.

Thank you Scott. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has ever had a summer job they hated, especially when our summers were meant to last forever. You can escape purgatory, you just have to want something better.

[Kenso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott Laudati’s novel, ‘Play The Devil’, is a nihilistic dance through a menial workday in American suburbia. Londi, the protagonist, is trapped between adolescence and young adulthood; an aimless developmental landscape. The novel deals with optimism versus mundanity; a 20-somethings take on the supposed ‘American Dream’; conformity or face the road-less-traveled. However, both roads may be equally bleak.

[Caitlin Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up in New Jersey and this is a hilarious romp through the backyards of the state. Bruce Springsteen all the way!

[Chrissi Sepe · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Play the Devil” begins with lead character, Londi, deciding to quit college for good. He sees a girl who hands him a button with the words, “Are you a victim of adolescence?” He pins the button on himself and drives to a bar. As he gets drunk, he finally has the confidence to let his parents know he is definitely quitting school. He texts his mother: “I quit. I am a victim of adolescence.” This surprise line literally made me laugh out loud. It is one of many surprise quips in the novel. These clever one-liners, sometimes extending into paragraphs, are Scott Laudati’s forte. “Play the Devil” is filled with witty sentences that range from the hilarious to the deep, wise, and philosophical.

I’ve enjoyed Laudati’s poetry for years, but this is the first novel I have read by him. The talented poet comes out many times in “Play the Devil” with imagery that only a true poet could write: “I was starting to understand a universal irony – the world does not exist in the snow globe of a Robert Frost poem.” My particular favorite is, “Kitschy chandeliers would soon hang like melting wedding cakes in the front windows.”

The main action of the novel takes place while Londi works at his summer job helping his friend, Frankie, clean “rich” people’s swimming pools. Although Frankie rushes through each job in a mechanical fashion, Londi is often stirred with emotions. He is a melancholy person who obviously thinks a lot. He never approaches life without carefully considering the circumstances and the people around him. He doesn’t care for the people whose pools he has to clean. He is immediately aware that these people have already made up their minds that anyone hired to clean their pools is beneath them. At times, it doesn’t even seem to Londi that these people even care about their pools. He observes, “No one ever knows what you are up to, but they will pay you so long as they think you are miserable while doing it.” A little while later, in more descriptive detail, he concludes, “You almost had to appreciate the bourgeoisie commitment to distinguishing themselves from the minions – slaving for them wasn’t enough; they had to make you park in the street and march first.”

As Londi’s workday goes on, he grows more despondent. “Nobody ever told me I’d grow into this – the shell of a man with nothing figured out.” He wants to earn a living as a writer, but when Frankie asks him why he doesn’t just get published, Londi tells him that he is trying, but his story keeps getting rejected. But he isn’t wallowing in self-pity. He just can’t help noticing how unfair the world is. He laments that mothers aren’t appreciated and that women spend their entire lives trying to live up to some perfect image everyone expects them to be, not who they truly are.

By the end of “Play the Devil,” Londi tries to be more optimistic. “Maybe the snow globe of a Robert Frost poem existed after all,” he wonders after he and Frankie talk about the family of a house they just left. But Londi worries that it’s too late for him to have a happy family life of his own. Throughout the book, he pines for a woman he refers to as “The Queen,” and we wonder if he will finally find happiness with her by the end of the book. We root for Londi, and we want him to be happy, but we know that neither college nor cleaning people’s pools are going to do it for him. Still, we have hope because he is smart and sensitive and tries his best to see both the humor and beauty of life as often as he can: “The sun followed me through the door and lit up the bottles behind the bar like little diamonds were floating inside of them. It gave me that feeling a kid gets staring at rainbow colored candy. Booze is like candy for adults, I realized. It’s our reward for getting through things that suck.”

I highly recommend “Play the Devil.” It is a clever and entertaining read from one of the most talented writers of our time.

[Ian Townsend]

Play The Devil is a classic, ‘one day in the life of’ story. The narrator is a complaining college dropout who views all his failures and shortcomings as a result of vague forces (capitalism, elitism, corruption). He is not the type of main character that I find endearing, in part because he reminds me so much of my twenty-four-year-old self. Multiple dropouts, Bright Eyes references, refusal to take responsibility for one's actions, a fetishized appreciation of manual labourers (until he becomes the manual labourer). There will always be dominating forces that complicate life. But as the character Frankie shows us, the best way to survive is to focus on the things you can control and tune out the extraneous noise.

Laudati has weaved a hellscape pool boy day into a charming, and at times funny story about accepting responsibility for your own life. A story that is peppered with colourful characters that keep you hooked. I read Play The Devil over a weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. At times I found it a little too involved in pool cleaning. All in all, it made me happy to have not grown up in New Jersey.

[John Maniscalco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m going to try my best to give this book the review it needs, but my words will not be as poetic and poignant as Scott Laudati’s. To be honest, I typically don’t read books like this but something caught my attention here. Maybe it was nostalgia, since I grew up in NY, NJ’s sardonic sibling. Maybe it was because he’s a nice guy and sent art with the book. I’m not sure, but I loved it. I could absolutely relate to the two main characters and the few days they spent trying to make sense of the world. At times I could see myself in Londi and other times, I’ve been Frankie. Laudati’s words are poetic, to be sure. He has a keen way to take something mundane and make it sound magical or give it some mystique. But in reality, it’s about two jaded souls trying to make sense of life as they navigate into adulthood. This story was touching, funny, ridiculous and action packed. This is a must read for anybody not satisfied with the American dream and is trying to get more out of life!

[Tinamarie Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I am as exhausted as Londi now that I've experienced his day with him. Whew!
This was good! Definitely quick and easy to digest. Clean cut prose like Laudati's short story collection. Authentic writing (despite some of the craziness) and the right amount of coarseness for two young Italian NJ guys working and searching for their place in the world.
You've got cynical/disillusioned Londi having a bit of an existential crisis and Frankie is the friend to pick him up. They're an entertaining duo to say the least. Two "tough" guys with good intentions (and possibly future lung cancer) against the world.
What I liked most was that lost and looking/ little bit of angst/ little bit of wtf/ there has to be some reason behind this/ how did I get here and can I escape/ existential stuff in the characters and story. So, if you're down for some dudes like this and some shenanigans, definitely recommend.

[Greg Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if Dude Where's My Car met Clerks? That's this book. It follows a couple of bumbling Jersey pool boys over the course of a single summer Saturday, as they drink and smoke, discuss life and its relative fairness, consider the future, and occasionally clean pools.

This book is really, really f$#king funny. It's dude lit with a capital D, bro. I met Scott at a reading last weekend and picked this up because I enjoyed the poems he read. I wasn't expecting to like it this much, but I couldn't put it down. Except when I had to while I was reading it at the bookstore and laughing too much and making customers uncomfortable.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly can’t remember the last time a novel made me laugh out loud so hard. The story follows a slacker and aspiring writer who goes AWOL from college in an attempt to break away from the drudgery of schoolwork, only to find himself in an entirely different, but equally soul crushing sort of drudgery. We join the protagonist on an endless Groundhog Day as he philosophizes about life and navigates love, friendship, rivalry, nazi war criminals, and a job that threatens to sink him. Play the Devil is a poignant, irreverent, and riotously funny novel. An adroit exploration of what it means to be an aspiring artist coming of age in a late stage capitalist society.

[Dario · Rating 5 out of 5]

The plot of this book happens in one day. And you will read it in one day. An Americana rock, working-class, coming of age story you won’t be able to put down. It’s all in there: Broken families, broken love, duct-taped friendships that are stubbornly still holding on, a sense of loss and sense of hope, and a uniquely American, post-capitalist sentiment of just how tedious and pointless work can be. A tour de force, funny and heartbreaking at the same time, interspersed with random, hard-earned life wisdoms. Like: Socialism needs to be studied carefully and repeatedly. Or: Kurosawa is not a motorcycle. A must read!

[Aug Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freaking LOVED this book. A riot from start to finish. Hurries along with tremendous energy and a whole lotta fun. The majority of it takes place over the course of one long day cleaning pools and I did not want that day to end. The characters rage with compulsion - Frankie Gunnz to do his job, our narrator to avoid it, while both tank up on booze, weed, cigarettes, hope and despair, to make their way through the streams of shit (often literal) and vileness constantly coming their way. Hilarious but also with some genuinely touching tender moments, such as the post-Scientologist encounter bellini scene with the waitress at the diner. And Laudati is master of the good simile.

[Rebecca Gransden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young guy gets a job cleaning scum from pools. guy from scum gets cleaning job a Young pools. cleaning scum Young a gets pools guy job from. guy a scum job cleaning gets from Young pools. a job scum guy cleaning gets Young from pools. scum from cleaning Young pools a guy gets job. guy a pools from job scum Young cleaning gets. cleaning from pools a scum job gets guy Young.

Low wage rage and life resistance, where dead ends can’t even be dreams. Chemical ennui for the leeway deprived.

[C.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this novel. The writing is fresh and fast, a coming of age story told through two best friends spending a spring day cleaning pools. But it’s so much more than that. It’s funny, charming, dark, full of hilarious jokes and cutting observations and the American Dream. This can be read as just a straightforward comedy, or a contemporary novel on the failing lower middle class of America. I really think there’s something for everyone in here. Even a love story! Highly recommend.

[Tohm Bakelas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are Sasquatches real? Was 9/11 an inside job? Was pizza enough to kiss our dreams goodbye? Why does fate always demand such a high cut? Russians. Dostoevsky. Nazi artifacts. New Jersey. It's all there. Scott Laudati reaches new heights with "Play The Devil." I highly suggest you don't sleep on this fucking book. Someday it'll be turned into a movie. Just wait.

[Tallie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great read from Laudati. His poetry is great too but this flushed out rolling epic tale of best friends and young love proves that he is the stand out among his peers. Definitely buy this book!

[suzanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wanted to read it but....

I could only get through a few pages and was so distracted by random
words that were hyphenated that I couldn't stand it. I don't even know if this was a huge editing error or on purpose for no reason I could discern.

[Harry Stanford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found the boy from reading a short piece on Litro. Good book all around, not so different from all the other shitty jobs but the author is funny as fuck and he writes prose like a Kerouac or Hunter Thompson sort of school. Dug it.

[Jordan Ritto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I downloaded this as part of a free bundle. It was the only book that didn't suck. If the 60's alternative lit like Burroughs or Wolfe continued rolling on this book would be the grandchild. Equal parts social commentary, pop culture, violent, hilarious, gross, philosophical ... I loved it.

[Andrea Janov · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a fan of "slice of life" entrainment and art. Nothing lost, nothing gained within the story, just a glimpse into this other world. Play the Devil definitely salsifies that. Stoned, drunk, Jersey pool boys were a fun ride.

[Jeffrey Shucard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant, audacious romp along the underbelly of a New Jersey ripe for satire. We join our hapless protagonist as he stumbles from one disastrous encounter to the next on his journey to himself. I found myself swept along the seamless prose, not a dull moment in sight!

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this while on 2 flights and in a couple of airports and it made me nostalgic for the East coast which I’d barely left and will be returning to in just under a week. Quick read with clever writing and humour.

[Dom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I swear this book tattooed itself on my brain as I was reading it. You don't encounter characters like these too often in literature. A hilarious and strangely propulsive day in the life. Let's hear it for the poolboys.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fast romp, great love story, hilarious characters.