Beware this book
Written: Mar 08 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: None
Cons: Too many to list.
The Bottom Line: Do not buy this book. I might come in handy if you want a gift that will offend the good taste of hated rival.
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| whitesf's Full Review: Ralph Sarchie et al - Beware the Night: A New York... |
Beware the Night
Okay, here's the lowdown on this book:
An NYPD cop, with the help of a crew of Catholic priests, psychics, and other devout believers, investigates and resolves demonic possessions of both houses and people.
Sounds interesting. And the premise is quite interesting. The execution, however, leaves a great deal to be desired. Read on to find out why.
Inconsistent style and word choice
The book is primarily written by the actual cop that did the investigations and exorcisms. While it's nice to read the occasional colloquial-written, 1st-person, true-crime type story, this one goes way too far.
For starters, the cop's vocabulary is very limited. He uses the same few words to describe the supernatural over and over and over again.
Further, his word choice goes from semi-professional to crass in a few sentences. If the use of humor and profanity were consistent, I could have gotten on board with it. But to switch styles every few paragraphs is distracting and unprofessional. I can only wonder what the cop's co-author actually did while the book was being written. She must've been on coffee and donuts duty the whole time. I'm going to assume there wasn't an actual editor on this book—at least I hope there wasn't.
The main author is a religious bigot
The cop writing the book is most certainly intolerant of religious groups that are not devout Catholic. Although he stresses in the early parts of the book that all faiths are okay with him, he goes on later to remark, "Despite the fact that he wasn't a Catholic, he seemed like an okay guy."
Additionally, the guy drones on and on about how in order to be prepared to administer an exorcism, a participant need to be "in a state of grace." This entails, as he explains, having been to mass and confession very frequently. I suppose this precludes most non-Catholics from being pure enough to do the job.
Enough said.
Uninspired story elements
The book is divided into chapters that appear to be separate cases or investigations. This is not the case. Some of the stories are split into two or more chapters (with different names to appear to be different stories), so of the 16 chapters in the book there are only about 10 separate stories.
Of these stories, a few are derived from the plots of popular movies. Most notably, he rips off The Exorcist (no surprise here) and also Witchboard. I guess the guy has an axe to grind with Ouija boards.
Outlandish and Erroneous Claims
The cop claims to own an actual sliver of the "True Cross," which is purported to be the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Seriously, if this guy could even verify for a fact that he owned a piece of the original cross, he'd be a millionaire. He makes no explanation as to how he came to own such a rare and precious artifact. What's more, he brings it with him to every exorcism. If it were me, I'd have that old piece of wood in an airtight safe surrounded by lasers and machine guns. I have to call bullsh!t on this.
Notice I'm not questioning the author's claim to know that demons exist and that he has seen and communicated with several of them. I wasn't there, so I'm not going to argue with that. But the "True Cross" ?? Come on.
At one point, he mentions that he is visiting the apartment building of an apparent demonically possessed area when he sees a satanist reading a ritual from a book called "The Necronomicon." He then goes on about how evil the book is and how it is dangerous to own it. What he's too ignorant to know is that "The Necronomicon" is not a serious book. The original concept came from several stories by horror writer H.P. Lovercraft, who created the book as a literary device in his stories. A few books were later published bearing the same name, but they were intended as jokes. "The Necronomicon" is pure fiction—it's a book that exists only in the stories of other books.
He also claims that the "circle-A" anarchy symbol is connected to satanism and demons. I don't think I need to say any more about that.
Nested stories
Probably the most annoying of all, however, was the author's use of what I call "nested stories." He'll start off a story, and then 5 pages into it, he'll start talking about another story that reminds him of the first one. Then about 5 pages later, he goes back to the original story. In one of the later chapters, there's a story within a story within a story. This is very confusing, annoying, and unprofessional.
Terrible photo insert
The back of the book has a callout labeled "Eight pages of spectacular photos." This is, without a doubt, the biggest lie in the book. Of the 15 photos in the insert, 9 are unrelated to the subject matter. There are several of the cop and and his family, including his own little league photo from way back and a shot of his family at their favorite vacation spot. The "real" photos are equally unimpressive, including some grafiti and a headless chicken. None of the photos directly related to any of the stories in the book. I'm almost at a loss to describe something so idiotic.
Overall
This book is terrible. The editing is poor and the writing is uninspired. One author is a crass bigot and the other might as well not have been involved in writing of the book. Just horrible. Do not buy this book—unless you're in the mood for a good laugh or if you are a writer looking for how not to put together a good book. I really can't say enough bad things about this book. It is abysmal.
Recommended:
No
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whitesf
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Location: Hopatcong, NJ
Reviews written: 45
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Guitar, amp, pedal junkie and DIY enthusiast.
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