Sunday with the Devil

Dave McLonaig is rounding the bend to middle-age, stressed and plagued by disturbing half-memories of his childhood. Not oblivious to the pain that he is causing his wife, he abandons his family in Senegal and goes in search of his old school friend, David Glenfie. Unaware of it at the outset, he desperately needs David’s permission to break the pact of silence that they have kept for over thirty years: to talk about the horrifying things that happened on That Sunday.

Dave’s wife, Jenna, is furious and hurt by her husband’s deliberate disappearance. Forced to move in with her in-laws, and dealing with the fact that Dave may never return, Jenna starts to uncover some uncomfortable truths about her husband’s parents, and his past.

Holed up in a boarding house in Birkenhead, Dave too is getting closer to discovering what actually went on. But he is also getting closer to his beguiling, young landlady. Incommunicado, he is unaware that his mother is dying and that his father has finally revealed a terrible family secret to Jenna. But something does not ring true. If Dave’s father is telling the truth, the outlook looks bleak. If Jenna is right, they may have a chance.

A contemporary family drama spanning three generations, Sunday with the Devil blends the characterisation of John Irving with the darkness of Ian McEwan - and delivers the story with the relentlessness and menace of Douglas Kennedy. Unique in that the vast majority of the tale is told through the medium of unfettered dialogue, Sunday with the Devil is at the same time troubling and yet heart warming.