Running from the Devil: A Memoir of a Boy Possessed [Hardcover]

Steve Kissing (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0824521056 | ISBN-13: 978-0824521059 | Publication Date: April 1, 2003

What's a kid to do when recurring hallucinations lead him to believe that he?s possessed by the devil? In the case of one boy with an over-active imagination and a Catholic parochial school upbringing, you don?t tell a single soul for fear of being ridiculed, sent away for treatment, or perhaps even burned at the stake. Instead, you wage a private holy war against Satan. Based on an award-winning feature story, Running from the Devil is Steve Kissing's poignant, yet humorous, memoir about the remarkable steps he took to hide his condition—later discovered to be epilepsy1and exorcise his demons. The tale is a testament to the power of a child's imagination and religion's influence on an impressionable mind.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This memoir about a "boy possessed" reads like a cross between The Exorcist and David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day. Having been born into a Catholic household and eventually becoming an alter boy, Steve Kissing's childhood relationship with the Church was characterized by the usual bouts of reverence and guilt. Then one day, at the age of 11 years old, he suddenly started hallucinating and hearing a garbled voice in his head while sitting in his fifth-grade classroom. He managed to push the incident out of his mind until a few months later when the visions and voice returned during Sunday Mass. At this point, Kissing assumed it was the devil taking over his soul. After all, he was certainly a likely candidate, considering that he had recently shoplifted candy among other moral transgressions. From here the memoir takes on a hilarious and tragic storyline as we follow this poor possessed soul through his teenage years. When the devil possesses Kissing, he conjures up visions that are simultaneously bizarre and familiar—close friends suddenly look like Helen Reddy or Henry Kissinger, or even the Joker from the televisions show Batman.

All along he was afraid to tell anyone about his run-ins with Lucifer—-not even his parents knew. "I worried too that telling someone would only anger Satan and incite more trouble, sort of like telling a teacher that one of the eight graders is harassing you. It only seemed to make the bully all the more eager to catch you alone on the way home from school," he writes. "I was not about to be a Satan snitch." It would take five years of literal living hell (which he manages to describe with just the right amount of humor and heartbreak) before discvoering what in the hell was really going on. This is one of the most entertaining and twisted Catholic coming of age stories ever written. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

This bizarre and humorous memoir follows the saga of Kissing, a boy convinced he is possessed by the devil. Beginning in fifth grade, Kissing started having spells-lasting only a minute or two-when he would suddenly hallucinate and hear strange voices. "The pencil holder of my teacher's desk became a shovel; the film strip machine, a tuba; the corner coat rack, a big strip of bacon," he recounts. Meanwhile, he heard garbled voices, "like when someone tries to talk with a mouthful of potato chips." Alarmed by his first episode, he wracked his brain for a possible cause: Could it be the electrical shock he'd gotten while exploring the innards of an alarm clock? It was not until he had his next episode during Catholic mass-with the Blessed Virgin turning into a refrigerator and the pastor becoming Abraham Lincoln-that he convinced himself that Satan was to blame. What makes this a compelling story is that readers live inside the mind of a Catholic over-achiever who is desperately trying to hide his unusual relationship with Satan. The memoir's highest moments of comedy and tragedy resonate in Kissing's attempts to wrestle with his double life; not even his parents knew. Kissing was 16 years old before he discovered that his hallucinations were linked to a physical problem. Although the memoir is occasionally immature, it is also hilarious, sad and fully absorbing.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: The Crossroad Publishing Company (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824521056
• ISBN-13: 978-0824521059
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,316,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Contemporary Classic, August 31, 2003

By 

jeffrey hillard (Cincinnati, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Running from the Devil: A Memoir of a Boy Possessed (Hardcover)

At first you don't think young Stevie Kissing is going to win. But somehow, in the strangest of adolescent maneuverings, he does. You must read this memoir to find out how. And you will rarely stop when you begin reading. In Running with the Devil, an older, wiser Steve Kissing looks back with brilliant narrative drive to a delusional childhood. He chronicles the unruly effects of not a lapsed Catholic childhood, but one that was given to inadvertant bouts of, well, hallucinations, bad dreams, and unreliable goals. And he captures in utter poignancy and hilarity what it means to feel ostracized and clearly puzzled by a strange affliction obsessing him.

It's this juggling act of emotions that occurs with the reader and in the prose that give this memoir the brilliant edge the best creative nonfiction offers. You often don't think young Steve Kissing is going to win, but he does, and once you start in - as I said before - you are not leaving his side as a reader who shadows every page with him.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you are looking to laugh and cry, READ THIS BOOK!, May 8, 2003

By 

Cathy Cook - See all my reviews

This review is from: Running from the Devil: A Memoir of a Boy Possessed (Hardcover)

Being a tenth grade English teacher (at a Catholic school) puts me in a difficult position when it comes to finding books I know my students will be able to grasp and with which they can relate. Kissing's book is just what I was looking for to use in a unit that considers the plight of adolescents and the lengths they go to in order to hide what's going on inside from the world. Steve's book had me both crying and laughing at the same time--a rare gift. His sense of humor is obviously what helped him get through those years.

Nothing I can say will truly do justice for this book. The fact that I even picked up the book in the middle of the most hectic part of the year, much less devoured it as fast as I could speaks for itself. I am a serious critic, but I will say that, much like Stephen King, Steve Kissing had the talent to make me belly laugh in the middle of true horror.

As I said above, you DON'T want to miss this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A 'wicked' sense of humour, November 13, 2003

By 

M. Dean "Gaelic Zulu" (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Running from the Devil: A Memoir of a Boy Possessed (Hardcover)

A very honest and funny insight into the mind of an adolescent still caught partially in a childlike, literal understanding of the world, as he progresses to the more rational world of an adult. It's fascinating to see how the author's interpretation and understanding of his affliction are influenced by his environment, in this case his Catholic faith. A true life bildungsroman with both funny and poignant moments, this book has universal appeal. What resonated with me was seeing how our childlike interpretations so significantly effect our development (and no doubt continue to do so). One is left wondering whether this particular guy's crazy interpretations of events were such a bad thing for him after all. A really enjoyable read.