Deals with the Devil are made in Frank Dello Stritto's new novel

Review by Doug Gibson

In Frank Dello Stritto's new novel that blends the arts with culture and history, a young man is saved from death during the horrific General Slocum water tragedy 100-plus years ago. His benefactor is a man named Cadwallader, who promises him a life without pain and death for as long as he wants. 

In "Deals with the Devil, Dialogues with Death," (Cult Movies Press, 2025) we are not provided our protagonist's name. He is essentially an "everyman," one without attachments who makes a crucial decision -- in a very rushed manner. He is skeptical of the strange gentleman's offer, but soon learns it is legitimate, and not revocable. (The Amazon link is here.)

This begins a long century of experiences for our man who makes this deal with the devil. He is outwardly a pleasant individual, one capable of earning respect and being kind to others. But he does learn that there is a curse with his endless life. He cannot love conventionally. He can experience long-term relationships. He has to watch -- helplessly -- as people die to the dark futures that beings such as Satan, Lilith (renegade wife of Adam), and Death itself can foresee. And he watches, perhaps with lessening emotion, the fates of souls who have made similar bargains with Old Scratch. His life defines loneliness; with long stretches at sea, dark trips to Europe; a journey on the Hindenburg, and solitary jobs in pawnshops. 

As is customary with these excellently researched and crafted Dello Stritto novels, the plots of movies, television show, books, and historical events serve as settings in our protaganist's life journey.  Films as old as "Haxan" and as new as "Final Destination" are explored. TV show such as "Thriller" serve the plot. If you seek an in-depth discussion on the various going-ons in "Deals with the Devil," Plan9Crunch YouTube interviewed Dello Stritto. 

Ironically, one reason this is a good novel is that the reader is unsure how all will be resolved. Sure, on paper it seems that our protagonist will live until he chooses to die and is presumably dragged to hell. But it's just not that simple. Our character's two significant pals are Satan (of whom we learn has many faces), and Death. (He does have a relationship with Lilith, but she's all bad news). In fact Death, although disappointed in the choices of his companion, seems to care about our protagonist. Even Satan provides unusual deference for him, far more than he shows to other of his followers. 

Dello Stritto's engaging prose -- this book flows well -- makes the reader grapple with various questions: how responsible are we for our actions?; can free will overcome a contract with the devil?; does deity -- good or bad -- select whom will live and die when there's a tragedy; and, of course, is there ever a time when a human's soul is still retrievable? 

I loved reading this novel. It did not leave me with upbeat, or triumphal feelings. Rather, it was a comprehensive, sobering look at a man who could be any of us, who makes a decision that takes him through adventures no one else can match. But they also come with so much regret and the seeming assurance of hell. Can he make it to heaven one day. We will never know.

Review of the novel, ScreenSaver! a magical rom-com adventure

Review and interview from Doug Gibson

Imagine a pair of computer game designers, male and female, named Denny and Jo, pressed with time to put the final touches on a game starring a female superhero named Brynthila. The day is drawing near that your boss, Max, has to have everything ready for the money people. A video game expo, a comic con of sorts, is also drawing near. Suddenly, Brynthila steps out of her game, mostly real, prepared to continue her quest on Planet Earth. It’s an intriguing plot and novelist Beth Porter, who has has had a varied career ranging from prominent acting roles, writing, directing, even political observer, has crafted a witty, very funny novel, ScreenSaver!, (Womenstuff Publishing, 2018). The novel is a magical fantasy but it’s also a rom-com (romantic comedy) with dueling creators (feminist Jo and masculine Denny) clearly repressing considerable interest in each other. Meanwhile, the deadlines draw nearer as their boss Max gets more frantic. The main plot involves the creators trying to keep the game's hero, Brynthila, in check. Brynthila is a fascinating creation. Early on her experiences on earth and how she interprets them are subject to the world created for her. Her matter of fact assumptions and actions lead to many amusing passages of mayhems and confusion. As time progresses, though, she gains in independence, surprising her creators and making them more dependent on her for their success. In my opinion, Porter’s prose is at times satirical, subtly touching on cultural and political themes. She demurs a bit, saying the story focuses on a pair of primary themes. I’ll stop there to invite readers to follow my interview with her. You can buy Screensaver via Amazon here or its Kindle version here. With its combination of romance and fantasy done with comic timing, I think the tale would make a great film.

Beth Porter's career began in the early 1960s. She worked with the famous acting troupe, La Mama. She has appeared in films that include Love and Death, The Great Gatsby, Reds and Yentl. We reviewed her autobiography, Walking On My Hands, a few years ago in this blog. INTERVIEW WITH BETH PORTER Plan9Crunch: If I needed to give a quick summary of Screen Saver! I’d describe it as a witty, romantic comedy/satire farce. But it’s also a video game character, Brynthila, coming to life to achieve pre-conceived goals but then developing earthly independence. But I know there is more that is being said. Feminism, gender roles, capitalism, sexism, greed, altruism, big business … Tell us about messages told thru the story, or if I’m wrong let me know? Beth Porter: Messages? That quotable film producer Samuel Goldwyn [co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer] is reputed to have said “if you want to send a message, use Western Union.” but whether he said it or not, I never set out to send messages to the reader. That’s a tool of the Propagandist, not the Fiction Writer. There have been some writers - very few - who’ve managed both - such as Robert Trestle’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, and much of Charles Dickens, e.g. Bleak House - also I suppose Hugo’s Les Miserables and Tolstoy’s final novel Resurrection which sets out to expose hypocrisy inherent in The Law and The Church. So, no trip to the telegram office for me! The themes I intended for ScreenSaver!, on the other hand, are primarily about the nature of reality, and one of my recurring literary themes - the lifelong search for identity. The latter, of course, is not anything new. It’s what so many literary genres attempt to answer: Who are we? It’s such a fundamental question, and we never get tired of exploring it - in every way we can! Even before we as a species could write, we were telling stories that helped us define ourselves. In addition, and considering that although I was born an American and raised in NY until I moved to the UK when I was 26, I’ve had to take into account the phenomenon of class into account when thinking about identity. There really is no parallel in America. It’s not about wealth or so-called breeding. People claim it’s disappearing, if not gone entirely. Those people usually are speaking from within the class system. As an outsider I can testify that class is alive and well and one of the most insidious unacknowledged prejudices by all its members. It influences other prejudices such as gender, age, and ethnicity. It would have been impossible to tell the story of ScreenSaver! without it. My challenge was to make it funny. So you’re certainly correct to call ScreenSaver! at least in part, a satire, because I definitely wanted to use my characters to subvert their search for who they are. Plan9Crunch: Who is Brynthila modeled after? Or is she a composite of several game characters? (I don’t play video games so excuse my ignorance of the genre). Beth Porter:
Brynthila isn’t actually modeled after anyone or any game character. Yes, I’ve been playing vid games since the late 1980s, but my choices have been very limited and have tended not to include story-based games. Mostly I play a genre called HOG or Hidden Object Games, which rely on examining a brilliantly-designed screenful of images that have various objects cunningly hidden. You then have to identify those objects, either by choosing them from a list, or by their silhouettes, or by selecting bits of the object to create a new object. Then you can move on to the next level of the game. There are HOG games which also include solving other brain-teasing puzzles, and some have begun attaching stories to progress to the next levels. But those stories are pretty formulaic and not very well written. None of them has in any way inspired me or my own story. Plan9Crunch: Could you share with us your experience with the genre and what led you to create the tale of Brynthila, the Goddess, Jo and Denny, Max, Fiona, Lovelace (love the name by the way), and the other characters. Beth Porter:
OK I’m a bit confused because I’m not entirely sure I understand what you mean by “the genre.” From its inception as a story in my head, many decades before I started to write it as a story, I was convinced it should be a rom-com, which is a well-honed genre familiar in 20th century films, but not so much in other tales of popular fiction. I mean you wouldn’t call Cinderella a rom-com, would you? Of course, Sheridan’s 18th century romantic conceit The Rivals showcasing Lydia Languish, and a century later Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, Austen’s several romantic satires, et al are hailed for their comic effect. But for me, and great as they are, the comedy tends to emerge from the behaviour of the subsidiary characters like Mrs Malaprop and Mrs Bennett, rather than the more serious lovers themselves. What led me to my own story was my growing analysis of the digital world. Yes, it was playing computer games that had led me in, but I became fascinated not by the hardware, but by the possibilities. Given this amazing technology, what visions might be achieved by creative people working in other contexts. I expanded this line of thinking in the central chapter of my first published book. It’s called The Net Effect and it was commissioned by a small publishing company called Intellect. Apart from having learned some presentation coding called html, I don’t have a clue how to program anything. I only learned html so I could construct my own websites - but they weren’t very sophisticated, and by then I knew where I could acquire code snippets to make my sites look and run better. So, as my story just wouldn’t go away I figured out how to combine the rom-com genre with a fantasy twist that could work with a pinch of the suspension of disbelief. Of course, that’s exactly what readers of comic books and fiction as well as film audiences have to do to enjoy genres such as horror or space travel or other time travel epics. The more I had to devise the scenes I needed to tell the story, the more I was able to create characters to support the main story of the two seemingly mis-matched lovers. Plan9Crunch: Are Jo and Denny based in part on any artistic characters? Also, I find it interesting that the success of the game is helped by Jonathan, who has the wealth necessary to counter Max’s ineptitude. Beth Porter:
The short answer is no, they’re not. For a few years I was the Executive Producer of some big brand commercial websites, in charge of teams of programmers and graphic artists for an international webhouse. I watched both those teams and could assess their work although I have neither programming nor graphic design skills; the process was quite similar to my years of experience as both a practitioner and Development Executive for BBC Television. It was clear that the technical roles were primarily taken by men [I think I only ever met two women coders], though the design teams both in TV and online were more equally balanced gender-wise. When it came to developing my own story, and guided by my desire to explore the theme of identity, I concluded that it would give me greater comic possibilities if Jo were the programmer and Denny the designer. As to Jonathan’s wealth, it serves several purposes for the story. The first is the parallel with Brynthila’s almost ridiculous origins - after all she’s programmed by Jo, who comes from a very wealthy “old money” family. She also has very little actual knowledge of the extent of her father’s international corporate influence, but, like a few British aristocrats [such as the late Tony Benn who renounced his inherited title], have started to question the morality of the world around her. I thought it would up the ante of the comedy if Denny had a purely digital relationship with Jonathan via their mutual passion for chess. It’s his discovery of Denny’s actual identity - not to mention his learning of the enormity of the games market - which prompts Jonathan to help him - and, of course, his baffling daughter. The seeds have been planted, of course, by Jonathan’s falling in love with and marriage to Elaine, a morganatic match which, one assumes, would have been frowned on by his ancestors. And, in terms of the real world, it’s undeniable that a cabal of wealth holders influence, if not directly control, most decisions these days. But that’s a consequence, not a starting point for him as a character. Plan9Crunch: I enjoyed this read. It reminds me of a gentler Hanif Kureishi novel, like Gabriel’s Gift or The Nothing? Please add anything you think is important for readers to know. Beth Porter:
Thanks again for giving me the opportunity to fill in some of the gaps about the writing process. When I first became obsessed with the story of ScreenSaver! I assumed it would be a screenplay, since I’d never before written a novel, just a few short stories. But I couldn’t make it work, so I put it away for another day. Over the years the idea kept diverting me; I found myself thinking about it, trying to figure out ways to do this or that, characters that would be both believable and entertaining. Until finally, I had the time to devote, and began the grand task of climbing that novel mountain! I just hope readers can enjoy the humor of a story that stands on its own unusual feet while breaking a few barriers of fiction.