Overview
Inspired by real-life experiences, the The Devil and Me takes place during the post hippy 70s and the drug driven 80s in Chicago where Alexis searches for love in all the wrong beds with her precocious costume-changing imaginary friend, Red. He appears to Alexis in her childhood while her alcoholic parents recreate WWII in the kitchen and devotes his time (and fashion expertise) to helping her cope with and partake in the ever changing sexual awakenings of her tumultuous adolescence and escalating sexcapades of young womanhood. Alexis' love interests change as rapidly as her career choices among which include Snakeskin; a drug dealer from Tennessee, Germany; an aloof and unexpectedly impotent printmaker from Europe, Harelip; a wealthy investor with unexpected physical characteristics, The Snort; an overcompensating but less than endowed runner on the commodities exchange, Mr. Sausage; a boring commodities broker with an affinity for all things sausage, Handlebar Mustache; an eclectic yet paranoid currency trader who thinks he's being followed, Manhatta; a plagiaristic bike riding New York photographer, The Letch; a photographer's assistant with a twisted perversion for models, Adman; an advertising agent with gastronomical issues and a big secret, The Wolf; a narcissist celebrity photographer with a knack for rap, Guido; a car parts mobster with an offer Alexis can't refuse, and Ira; a goy loving Jew with a Jewish agenda. Uncharacteristic for an atypical devil, Red turns the tables on Alexis and alerts her to her self-deprecating behavior, but she slips further into her delusional world. When she discovers the source of her unhappiness, will she take a new lease on life?
The Devil and Me is a baby boomer's campy, coming of age narrative guaranteed to resonate with all generations in today's indecipherable dating scene and will leave the reader in stitches.