The Exorcist
1971
- fiction
- horror
- horror fiction
- demonic possession
- gothic revival
- priests
- demons
- bishops
- heart arrhythmia
- jesuits
The story
The Exorcist is a 1971 horror novel by American writer William Peter Blatty. The book details the demonic possession of eleven-year-old Regan MacNeil, the daughter of a famous actress, and the two priests who attempt to exorcise the demon. Published by Harper & Row, the novel was the basis of a highly successful film adaptation released two years later, whose screenplay was also written and produced by Blatty, and part of The Exorcist franchise. The novel was inspired by a 1949 case of demonic possession and exorcism that Blatty heard about while he was a student in the class of 1950 at Georgetown University. As a result, the novel takes place in Washington, D.C., near the campus of Georgetown University. In September 2011, the novel was reprinted by Harper Collins to celebrate its fortieth anniversary, with slight revisions made by Blatty as well as interior title artwork by Jeremy Caniglia.
What it’s like
Cool autumn air over Georgetown's brick streets and tall old houses, with the city's bureaucratic offices and university halls slipping between scenes. The prose is plain, brisk and clinical in its medical and police passages, then turns lush and liturgical when the priests take up the rite, so that the book feels like two textures braided together. Its dread builds slowly through ordinary domestic detail, long stretches of investigation and doubt, and wry, humane banter, before the horror arrives in sudden, sharp bursts. The intensity is high: possession brings grotesque bodily violence, graphic blasphemous and sexual content, profanity, and frightening cruelty, though much of the terror lives in suggestion and in the characters' guilt. Good for late-night reading with the lights on, for readers who want a slow-burn gothic mystery with theological weight and a flinty, funny detective keeping the mood human. Not for anyone seeking gentleness or a light escape.
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