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The Devil Rides Outside shows that it takes all grades of crude to make a literary Spindletop. It is the first novel of Dallas-born John H. Griffin, 32, a blind veteran of World War II. Author Griffin spoke his book into a wire recorder, and he talked far too much. He and his publishers (a Fort Worth firm whose first book this is) cut out 250 pages and could profitably have lopped off 200 more. But though Devil is crudely written as well as overwritten, it has some things relatively rare in U.S. letters: energy, earnestness and unashamed religious fervor.
Author Griffin writes in the first person in diary form. His hero is a young American musicologist in France who arrives at a Benedictine monastery to study Gregorian chant. Author Griffin did the same thing, admits that Devil is at least an "intellectual history." His hero is no Roman Catholic, but by the rules of the order he must live as a monk so long as he stays at the monastery. This is not easy. His unheated stone cell is bitterly cold, the food is execrable, and he must share such work as cleaning the primitive lavatories. Moreover, his brain is filled with images of his Paris mistress, his nights made maddening by dreams. "-
He becomes ill and the monks nurse him. As he comes to know them and to understand their search for God, he is first vaguely impressed and vaguely irritated, then troubled by his own spiritual emptiness. Gradually, the monks encouraging him, he begins an intensive self-search, is infected by a mounting desire to find God and live a life of the spirit. The stumbling block is sex.
When, after another illness, the musicologist moves into the town, Devil concentrates on life outside the walls. Now the assorted evils of everyday life in the world are seen in contrast to monkish goodness. Truly the devil rides outside, where spite, greed, hatred (and again & again sexual temptation) plague and disgust the hero.
Author Griffin's hero is a cardboard character in a contest of more powerful wills; the monks and most of the townspeople are mere symbols of good & evil. Nevertheless—and crude, awkward and febrile as it is—The Devil Rides Outside is kept bowling along by pure writing steam. It is often repetitive and frequently staggers to a stop, but it is saved each time by a fresh burst of vigor and intensity. At novel's end the musicologist returns to the monastery, and there is the promise that he will find God and inner peace. Author Griffin did not go back to a monastery. He chose a 40-acre farm instead. But the act of writing Devil led to a change of church. Once an Episcopalian, Griffin has become a Roman Catholic.