A Demonology of Desires
A preliminary note
After more than 10 years of work, my novel A Demonology of Desires is due out this May with Sul Books. Since that publication is the impetus for me to revamp this Substack page, I’m going to start with a quick note about that. More is still to come.
Writing this book has been a bit of journey, taking me all over the world in its (so far still digital) pages, during a period when I’ve rarely strayed very far from Prague. It gave me the chance to go back to places I’d been to years before, but haven’t been back to since. It also let me visit places I’ve never been and probably will never be. It allowed me to imagine loves I never had and—to be honest—probably am better off not having, but also to think again about the love I have and want to keep.
In the beginning, I had no idea where I was going. I started after setting aside another novel that was going nowhere. And because academic work was draining and unpredictable, never allowing me extended periods to focus on anything else, I decided it would be more reasonable to write short stories. But I have a penchant for ordering and collecting and rearranging, and soon I wrote two and then three stories that had the same format and the same narrator: a PhD student named Joseph goes somewhere to study local beliefs in demons, only to get swept up in those demon beliefs himself. Those three stories begat a few more; Joseph met a woman I've never met, named Lucy; then he kept meeting women named Lucy; then he got embroiled in an academic spat between professors from the University of Chicago’s Department of General Demonology and its breakaway Department of Applied Demonology. Then he started going a little crazy, trying to find a woman who, as his friends suspect, was maybe never even there.
In other words, the text began to grow, taking on demonic proportions I hadn’t expected; it needed a lot of taming and—a bit like an Arabian djinn—it needed some coaxing to squeeze it into the contours of a book (unfortunately, I don’t promise it will grant any wishes when you open it again; but who knows?). For help with that editorial coaxing, I have many readers and commenters to thank (Jo Blin, Danielle Bodnar Alyssa, Melinda Reidinger, Rhyd Wildermuth, Tereza Reichelová, Scott Alexander Jones, Zoheb Mashiur, Daniel Lamken, Mark Stroup, Ashley Melucci, and many others).
Some, who know me as an overworked academic, may be inclined to ask: How did you find time for this? For me the more important question is: How did I let myself spend so little time on this for so long? At any rate, now it’s finally coming out, and I’m very glad.
One important thing, in closing: apologies to my professors and classmates and colleagues who may, incorrectly, see themselves in the book. I'll admit that I did allow myself to be inspired by the best parts of some of you and your work (especially Adriana Ká, Max Bohnenkamp, Luděk Brož, and William Mazzarella), but all the exaggeration and melodrama surrounding the demons and magic that I borrowed is the product of my own inappropriate imagination.
Needless to say (or is it needed?), the book’s protagonist Joseph Geistberg is not me. But on the other hand, what protagonist is ever completely independent of his author, whom he ends up taunting in parody?
I hope the book speaks to anyone who’s ever been a passionate student, or who’s ever been afraid of getting too embroiled in what you study, or who’s just been afraid havin to study, or who’s ever just been afraid of anything at all. Or desired anything all. Especially what you, and we, fear.
