The Exorcist, book review. (William Peter Blatty)

Of course, you know the story, don't you?

The one where the girl is possessed by the devil. The one where she inflicts terrible injuries on herself and others, where the bed vibrates, rising into the air before crashing down. You've seen the film too no doubt; it's a little dated now so maybe you haven't - it’ll be on your favourite streaming service if you bother to look - but have you ever actually read the book? The book that led to the film that spawned a genre that still spews out multiple versions of this story every year?
Well if you haven't, maybe you should.
This book is dark and it's cold, helped by the icy American winter in which it is mainly set, but it runs deeper than that, far deeper because we’re dealing with a young girl (Regan) who we first think is traumatised by her parents' break up, or maybe it's her mother's hectic and somewhat erratic work schedule or her coming of age, we don't really know but something isn't right, and with the failure of the medical experts to assist and then the suspicious death of one of her mother's friends - he falls down a particularly long flight of steps before coming to rest with his head facing completely the wrong way - Regan's mother, Chris, reaches out to the church, to Father Karras.
Blatty's writing here is great: his characters, his setting, his slow but not too slow build-up through the book as Regan sinks further and further into her unknown illness are excellent, and all the way through, right up to the climax, he manages to keep us on tenterhooks as to what the police detective may or may not discover, whether Regan is possessed - in the eyes of the church that is - whether she can be saved, exorcised, and it had me staying up late, reading the last hundred pages or so in one long sitting because I just couldn't put it down. I had to know. (This is a reread but it’s been a good twenty years so I really didn’t remember).
There are some aspects of this book that feel a little dated now - it was written in the early seventies so that is to be expected I suppose - but there's little else to complain about. The pace is strong, it has great characters, I particularly like Karras who, with the recent loss of his mother, repeatedly questions his faith through the book, the wily old detective (who was either copied from TV's Columbo or was the inspiration for him they're so similar) and of course, there's the violent destruction of an innocent child by what claims to be a demon, and a word of warning here, the film does depict the book quite faithfully so the vomiting is here, the profanity and the . . . yes, that scene, where she masturbates with the crucifix, so go in with your eyes open, for this book doesn't hold back but is all the better for it.
Four stars then for the classic that is The Exorcist. Atmospheric throughout, great characters and it leaves you cold and needing the lights on to go to bed. Brrrrr!