Up Jumps the Devil

In his skillfully plotted and richly metaphorical debut novel, Poore sweeps from the beginning of time to a media-obsessed, 21st-century America chronicling the Devil’s quest to “raise the civilizations of earth until they looked down on Heaven.” The Devil’s motivation is not to win the universe, but only his long-lost love, an angel who descended with him from heaven only to leave again because she felt life on Earth was too brutal. In his mission to make Earth a “smarter, shinier, braver place,” the Devil pops up in ancient Egypt, in Ben Franklin’s lab, on the 1776 battlefield beside George Washington, and in the White House with JFK. He also makes an appearance at Woodstock and on his own reality TV show. Though the novel makes many jumps through time and location, the love story at the core holds the work together. In Poore’s hands, the world’s oldest antagonist becomes an unlikely but thoroughly lovable hero. Agent: Michelle Brower, Folio Literary Management. (July)