cover image Fleetwood Correspond

Fleetwood Correspond

William Griffin. Doubleday Books, $15.95 (166pp) ISBN 978-0-385-24680-4

The devil battles for the soul of a young woman in this epistolary novel which mimics the conventions of C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. Fleetwood, the surly devil who is this tale's most interesting character, leaves behind his aged mentor-devil in Britain and takes up residence in the U.S., where he ensnares countless souls, using computers to ``project temptational policy on a national scale.'' His latest target is a transplanted Southerner who gets an advertising job in Manhattan. She is spiritually confused, but plans to switch denominations and be baptized; so she turns to her bookish boyfriend (dubbed ``Fido'' by Fleetwood) for guidance on the value of prayer, the afterlife, faith and Jesus. Griffin, biographer of C. S. Lewis and a contributing editor of PW , creates a witty, infernal correspondence peppered with devilish touches. Some readers, however, may find his cutesy romantic couple ``too marshmallowy,'' to borrow the devil's quip about the heroine's suitor. (Mar.)