Evil?

by Timothy Carter

Stuart is an out gay teen living in a conservative family and town in Ontario. And... read more

Stuart is an out gay teen living in a conservative family and town in Ontario. And no one has a problem with that. Stuart’s church and the entire town are focused on the Sin of Onan (masturbation), something Stuart regularly commits (on page 1, for instance). When Stuart is outed as someone who masturbates, he is shunned and ridiculed at school. A brick is thrown through his window at home. His mom kicks him out of the house. Author Timothy Carter slyly sheds light on homophobia by casting it slant in this novel with more than one sharp edge. The source of the madness is a fallen angel who’s used his power to cloud the reason of almost everyone in town (Stuart’s wonderful priest is one of the few exceptions). Fon Pyre, a demon Stuart has been summoning for several years, explains that in other places, fallen angels have spread different kinds of hate—against gays, for example, or Blacks. Fon Pyre is snide at his best, murderous at his worst, but when Stuart realizes the fallen angel plans to unleash an even greater fury, he finds himself in an uneasy alliance with Fon Pyre. He needs the demon’s power to save humanity. The strange yet endearing loyalty that develops between them is just one of the many terrific dimensions of this insightfully funny story. (Age 14 and older)

© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2010

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