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The Devil's Presence: A Novel

Published by City Point Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

Can fiction save us? Is there hope for America in the time of Trump, pandemics, QAnon, and the end of genuine political discourse? What better than this perfectly told novel to tell the story of so many of us to ourselves, as we seek hope and solace in terrible times.

Andy McKnight had never seen anything like it; nobody had. The election of this man was breaking up families across the nation – wives and husbands, children and parents, lifelong friends, the fabric of American social life torn apart as it hadn’t been since the Civil War. The venom even seeped into his own happy home. Then came the pandemic, two plagues at once – even in the Bible they were one at a time. He tried escaping into the past, back to better times, but Max and Elly, an old man and a young girl he met on the streets of Santa Monica, jolted him back to reality. With others like them – mad as hell and not going to take it anymore – maybe it wasn’t too late after all.

About The Author

James O. Goldsborough, raised in Los Angeles, is an award-winning writer with a 40-year career in journalism. Goldsborough spent 15 years in Europe as a foreign correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, International Herald Tribune, Newsweek Magazine and the Toronto Star. He has written numerous articles for the New York Times Magazine, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. His first book, “Rebel Europe,” published by Macmillan, was hailed by the Los Angeles Times reviewer, “the most important book I have read in years.” He next published The Misfortunes of Wealth a family memoir dealing with the disadvantages of inherited money. His earlier well-received historical novels are The Paris Herald (2014) and Waiting for Uncle John (2018), both published by Prospecta Press and Blood and Oranges (2021) published by City Point Press.

Product Details

  • Publisher: City Point Press (May 2, 2023)
  • Length: 256 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781947951679

Raves and Reviews

A really good book. Goldsborough takes on important issues in this compelling and artful novel, and he does it with grace and a salutary dose of anger. Bravo.

– Beth Gutcheon, bestselling author of eleven novels, including More Than You Know, Still Missing, and Leeway Cottage

Goldsborough brilliantly and lucidly captures the Zeitgeist of our troubled times, how the depravity of MAGA is poisoning not only public discourse but insidiously seeping into and wrecking old friendships and once solid families. With his polished pen, Goldsborough contrasts today’s horrors with happier times: the dreamy Santa Monica of earlier times and the glories and loves of his days in Paris as a newspaper reporter. Goldsborough writes with an honesty and passion that will stir your soul and rekindle your belief that a better world is still within our grasp.

– RICHARD FEINBERG, former White House and State Department official, professor emeritus at UCSD, book reviewer for Foreign Affairs

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