"The Boy Who Could See Demons"

Carolyn Jess-Cooke is the author of The Guardian Angel’s Journal (2011), The Boy Who Could See Demons (2012), and the award-winning poetry collection Inroads (2010).

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Boy Who Could See Demons and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Boy Who Could See Demons is fairly crucial to the book’s treatment of Belfast. Child psychiatrist Anya has interviewed ten-year-old Alex after the fifth suicide attempt of his mother and is unnerved by his claim that he can see demons. One of the first things she does is look into reasons why he would make this claim, and so she ventures out into Belfast to get a sense of Alex’s environment. She and Michael – both born and raised in Belfast – have grown up surrounded by the many political murals on Belfast’s city walls, but it is only now that she pays attention enough to realise the potential significance of these on an impressionable boy.

“Come with me,” Michael says, jumping out of the car and racing around to the other side to help me out. Despite myself, I’m warmed by his chivalry.

“What do you think?’ he asks, nodding at the wall in front of us.

Another mural. This time, it’s a wall-sized portrait of Margaret Thatcher. Only, she has red eyes and blood trickling from the corners of her mouth. Another demon.

Learn more about the book and author at Carolyn Jess-Cooke's website and blog, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Writers Read: Carolyn Jess-Cooke.

My Book, The Movie: The Boy Who Could See Demons.

--Marshal Zeringue