a book
Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
James Hogg · 1824 · 156 pages
On the surface, this novel is a simple tale of a young man who encounters a shape-shifting devil, an early manifestation of a doppelganger, and the various misadventures that follow. This novel was perhaps the first post modern novel; it employs clustered narratives, self-reflexive point-of-view, unreliable narrators, and unsympathetic-protagonist. This is indeed a land mark novel.
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Ian Rankin
“This book has been haunting me since student days. It has been an influence on Scottish literature and certainly on my own Inspector Rebus stories. Set in pre-Enlightenment Scotland it concerns a young religious zealot called Robert Wringhim. Convinced by his preacher guardian that he is a member of ‘the elect,’ Wringhim then meets a charismatic stranger by the name of Gil-Martin who convinces him that they should dispatch anyone who has strayed from the path of righteousness. But who is Gil-Martin really? Is he the Devil, or a figment of the anti-hero’s fevered imagination? Very little is what it seems in this complex novel. Nemesis seems to be coming in the shape of two unlikely female detectives, but the fates have other plans for Wringhim. A psychological horror story, this also works as a novel of stalking, grooming, and serial killing.”↗