Nightsongs

Though not yet thirty, Arthur Goodbody's life has been at a low point since his wife died three years before. He works for a museum, not as an officer in the U. S. State Department as he'd once dreamed. He hasn't much money and few prospects. His social life takes place entirely at a bar in his neighborhood. He writes poems and dreams about creating an epic. Just as he is about to strive for a better way of life, however, a minor devil named Mr. Octavius barges into Arthur's affairs and offers to bring his late wife Laura back to him if he will enlist in Octavius's campaign to banish faith from human experience, starting with a man who betrayed Octavius's organization and now works to offer the Christian faith to whoever comes his way. The story follows Arthur's journey to overcome the pest who assails him.