Asmodeus by Rita Indiana

A hallucinatory thriller about a failing demon’s search for a new host in post-dictatorship Santo Domingo

 

Asmodeus, a millennia-old demon, has inhabited Rudy, a once-legendary Dominican rock star, for decades. But in 1992, the demon’s powers begin to fade. What follows is a desperate weeklong odyssey as Asmodeus ricochets through the bodies of the inhabitants of Santo Domingo’s underworld: from Guinea, a young metalhead plotting a warehouse heist, to Mireya, the daughter of a former torturer, to other souls caught in his chaotic orbit. Each possession reveals another layer of a city still reeling from the Balaguer dictatorship. And each new host engenders a surprising tenderness in the demon.

From acclaimed musical artist and author Rita Indiana, Asmodeus is written in urgent prose punctuated by original décimas, ten-line rhyming poems drawing from Latin American musical and oral tradition. Indiana weaves together Dominican heavy metal, black magic, and political trauma. Asmodeus is a supernatural noir, riotous thriller, and searing portrait of a nation grappling with its complicated past.