I, Lucifer: Finally, the Other Side of the Story

Glen Duncan s I, Lucifer begins one steamy summer as some heavy negotiations are taking place in Heaven. God has decided to give Lucifer, the furthest-fallen of all fallen angels, a second chance. The Prince of Darkness can return to the fold, provided he manages to last one month on earth without sin. The human form chosen for this celestial experiment? A depressed novelist of little renown, currently contemplating suicide in his Clerkenwell garret.

Lucifer eagerly grasps the opportunity for a holiday on earth, and uses his host s identity to re-write the story of Creation in a format that has Hollywood moguls kissing his feet. It s not popular with Him Upstairs, of course, what with the Devil being portrayed as a maverick free-thinker and God as a humourless autocrat. But Lucifer s having too much fun to care. He s experiencing the pleasures of the flesh for the first time and everything the odour of sweaty tube trains, cocaine, ice-cream, dirty sex--delights him. By the time the archangels are dispatched to bring him back, the Lord of all that s inhumane can t think of anything he d rather be than human.

Lucifer befogs his audience, alternately spitting fury at them like some sulphur-charged Dennis Leary and then insisting that he s a nice guy, just misunderstood. What s clear, however, is that Glen Duncan is not merely one of those writers who can come up with amusing concepts. He s a sharp, sometimes savage observer of the human condition, whose talents are as many as the legions of Hell.--Matthew Baylis