The Devil and Miss Josie

by David Benjamin

MADISON, Wis.—John Milton loved the Devil.

In literary history, Milton was the most pious and passionate of Christian poets, a devout believer and a pillar of the Church. But he was simultaneously a complicated intellectual with boundless curiosity and a devotion to artistic rigor. For Milton, it would have been illegitimate to portray, in his epic poem, Paradise Lost, a Satan without nuance, a demon perfectly and irretrievably monstrous. To a good storyteller, simplicity is anathema. A two-dimensional character in a starring role—as Satan might have been in Paradise Lost—is relict of a mediocre author.

There’s nothing mediocre in Paradise Lost. Milton created a Satan seething with rage but haunted by remorse, angry at God while scheming to seduce and ruin God’s favored creations. In Milton’s scripture, Adam and Eve, compared to Lucifer, are bit players, a couple of nudist nebbishes with few exciting qualities.

In creating his mercurial and strangely appealing prince of darkness, Milton courted accusations of blasphemy. But for an aspiring writer, as I was when I read Paradise Lost, Milton’s twelve rambling iambics are a tutorial in character development. I learned what every serious writer needs to know, that the bad guys (or girls) in a story must be crafted more carefully—and lovingly—than heroes. Milton established a template for villainy by fleshing out a malevolent character who is, despite his crimes and iniquity, morally ambiguous. Milton’s antagonist is brilliant, introspective and breathtakingly eloquent. Even as the reader desires to despise this devil, he or she perceives a tortured soul who inspires a pang of empathy, a wish that God might feel his enemy’s pain and contrive, somehow, to forgive him. Even as we know Lucifer is irredeemable, we see also why, before his fall, this ex-angel held a place in Heaven at God’s right hand. We have to reconcile ourselves to Milton’s concession that even what we regard as pure evil can’t be all bad.

That’s why we keep reading to the very end.

A comparison that comes to my mind is Mario Puzo’s depiction of Don Corleone—replicated by Francis Ford Coppola in the movies—in The Godfather. For all the detail in Puzo’s prose and Marlon Brando’s nuanced film version, Don Corleone is fixed and two-dimensional, more an archetype of the essential mob boss than a character who captivates the reader and inspires an audience’s sympathy. Michael Corleone, the torn and anguished offspring, is the character who seizes our interest and skews our moral compass.

Speaking of crooks we love to hate and hate to love, I recall a single-season television series, “Murder One.” The formidable Daniel Benzali, playing defense attorney Ted Hoffman, gives a riveting performance as an upright, brilliant advocate. But but every time he shares the screen with his antagonist, Richard Cross, played by Stanley Tucci, he’s reduced to second banana.
We know early in the series that Richard Cross is the mastermind behind a vicious murder that has implicated Ted’s hapless—but shifty—client. Rotten though he is, Richard Cross in Tucci’s portrayal is courtly and charming, imperturbable under pressure—crossing his legs, folding his manicured hands and smiling enigmatically. He is disturbingly likable while conveying an icy air of menace.

Stanley Tucci, I promise, read Paradise Lost. He knew exactly which character he would want to play if Hollywood ever tried to make a movie from Milton’s masterpiece.

When I create characters, I try to infuse even my good guys with flaws and quirks that make them credible and help the reader to identify. But this storytelling task is often most fun when I’m crafting a character who occupies the wrong side of Good v. Evil (or, preferably, Good v. Not So Good).

For example, in my series of crime novels set in the fictional village of Hercules, Wisconsin, my “hero” is the embattled police chief, Jim Otis. He’s an outsider from Chicago and he comes to town with a checkered past that includes an accusation—although misunderstood—of having had sex with an underage girl. Otis is not long in Hercules before another underage girl cunningly frames him with evidence that he molested her, too.

The girl, Josie Dobbs, is the toast of Hercules, head cheerleader, Homecoming queen, prom princess and a National Honor Society scholar bound for early admission to Bryn Mawr. She’s also the most cunning sociopath in the town’s rich history. Through a series of six novels (so far), Josie ducks in and out of Hercules, wreaking havoc that no one but the police chief—and a few friends—recognize as Josie’s handiwork. While blazing a trail of deception, manipulation, murder and heartbreak, Josie continues to bask in the adulation of the starstruck townspeople.

And Jim Otis, struggling to pin down Hercules’ teenage femme fatale before she can strike again, slowly rebuilds his reputation in a town without a heck of a lot of pity.

My readers tend to see themselves in Jim Otis, and he gets a lot of sympathy. On the other hand, because I reveal the real Josie hidden behind her beautiful blonde facade, my readers dislike her as much as they like Jim. But I have a perverse affection for Josie, probably mire than my readers, because she’s the spawn of my dark side. She commits crimes with intelligence, preparation, sophistication and panache—in cold blood. She’s my kind of crook.

Josie occupies a tradition of classic forebears like Milton’s Lucifer, Conan Doyle’s Professor Moriarty and Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter. She’s blatantly performative while fading into the shadows at the moment that her deeds face consequences. Once in a while, I stay awake thinking up fresh outrages for Josie to commit—and clever ways for her to slip the clutches of Jim Otis.

There are readers, I hope, who are torn in their opinion of Josie. While sharing Jim Otis’ frustration—his anger—at the evil Josie has wrought, the ambivalent reader also reluctantly, even guiltily, pulls for Josie to cleverly slip the noose before the book is over. Like me, this sort of reader wants to see what she’s up to in the next installment.

So it is with Satan in Paradise Lost. And so it is when a writer contrives to spin the troubling and fascinating prism of a character who projects perilously a shifting spectrum of contradictions. You don’t want the bad guy—or girl—to prevail. But, well, what if he’s more interesting that the good guy …

… even when God’s the good guy?