A moment of literatitism.
A Review of
Satan’s Daughter
by E. Pennebacker Chipps
I think I would’ve enjoyed “Satan’s Daughter”a mess of a lot more if I hadn’t cracked it open to discover that its full title is actually “My Date With Satan’s Daughter”. That said, I liked this book a lot, despite it not being the ultragory horrorfest its cover promised me.
Clark Chips (who I think is supposed to be a proxy for the writer, but the jury’s still out) is head editor of a lifestyle magazine and all-around Average Joe who understands everything in life except for love. He’s really someone I can relate to, except I have all these real-life problems and would probably run a magazine into the ground before its third issue went to print.
So Clark’s totally hating the dating scene until he meets–wait for it–Satan’s Daughter, a plucky notary public named Judy who uses “Kafkaesque” in a lot of sentences but doesn’t seem to know what it means, or maybe does and is being super-ironic about it. I know, it sounds implausible, but the author makes their romance seem so naturalistic when they meet in a plasma bank waiting room and bond over their mutual dislike of magazine inserts. He convinces her to go out with him, in some manner I don’t remember the details of but I recall it being cuter than a baby otter in a knit cap.
By now you’re wondering where the plot starts and trust me, I was right there with you, but things really start ramping up when Clark picks Judy up at her dad’s house. While waiting in Satan’s sitting room for Judy, Clark accidentally offends Satan by implying that the Dodgers’ 1988 World Series win was due to Orel Hershiser’s impeccable pitching, and more to Tom Lasorda having sold his soul to Satan himself for the assured victory.
So the conversation gets way heated and finally Satan’s like “you think you can do better? Maybe you wanna try running Hell for a day!” except he says it with a lot more attitude and sass, because in this book, Satan has an attitude. So Clark takes him up on it, and in the first fifteen minutes on the job, he’s managed to accidentally let Andrew Jackson out of his cell, let the shackles get all disorganized and forget to bring the recycling to the curb.
The last straw comes when Clark loses a demonic OJ Simpson pog that has the power of possessing anyone with an overwhelming 90s nostalgia. Satan gets real passive-aggressive about the whole thing. To right his wrongs, Clark goes on this really long adventure where he learns more about himself and grows as a person and thus becomes ready to slay a skeleton army, all the while accompanied by this hil-ar-ious smart-talking demon companion named Pickles. The whole “date” aspect of the story kinda disappears a third of the way through the book, and Satan’s Daughter is only mentioned two more times, after both of which Clark responds “…who?”
All in all, “My Date With Satan’s Daughter” was all right, if a bit self-indulgent (the seventeenth chapter segues into a tirade about the author’s now-ex-wife and the daily gauntlet that was their domestic life). I couldn’t put it down, but I think that had more to do with a lack of motivation on my part. If I could go back and warn myself about this book, I wouldn’t think twice.
(Note: if you do purchase this book, be sure to pick up the 2nd-edition printing. The 3rd-edition printing is missing every twelfth sentence and the 1st-edition printing contains an error in which every instance of the word “suddenly” is replaced with “phosphorus”.)
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