/lit/ - Literature

>Legion
>William Blatty

I must have forgotten this was a sequel to The Exorcist, but you wouldn't know going by the first 2/3, and then it spins out of control, ups the tension at every turn to fizzle out at the end.

There's an oppressive mood to the whole thing, and the atmosphere Blatty creates in every scene could earn him an award in imagined folley work. You hear the sound of traffic and sirens through the badly insoulated precinct windows, the telephones, the perpwalks. The streets breath, rooms hum with the gloom. If anybody wanted SE7EN in a novel, this isn't a million miles away, even down to the affable old detective who rambles to himself and anyone who'd listen.

It was never going to be a 5; the Exorcist is such a great read. But despite the crappy ending and general lack of horror for most of the book Blatty knows how to write interesting characters, and the creepines make it more a generous 3/5