Santa Steps Out
By Robert Devereaux
Leisure $5.50
 
 

Fully in the spirit of the holiday season, I resolved to read Robert Devereaux's "fairy tale for grown ups" during my seasonal vacation. I was acquainted with its reputation from the days of its first Dark Highway Press publication as a limited edition, and I'd applauded Leisure's willingness to bring a controversial work to the mass market. In my view, controversy is good almost no matter what it is - for if we don't question the status quo and rip ourselves out of the so-called envelope, what kind of artists are we?

Having read it - devoured it, more truthfully - I applaud even more loudly and at length. Though generally I tend to show a bias for the controversial and even the shocking and taboo, I admit that as I read Santa Steps Out I felt the niggling fear (Catholicism induced, no doubt) that I was stepping over a line drawn clearly into the floor of my conscience by years of cathechism and religion classes. Not to mention my long stint as altar boy. Even as I roared with laughter, I felt the perverseness of the guilt which tinged my enjoyment with an edge of danger, and yes, even fear ... fear that I had finally transgressed beyond hope of redemption in the eyes of the God to whom all is owed, if Catholic school is to be taken seriously and literally. 

Again, I liked this feeling of danger and fear, because I believe almost without fail that questioning our world is our first obligation as humans and as writers.

For while this insanely raunchy, funny, thrilling, tragic, and occasionally cute and silly fable is entertainment of the highest order, it also jabs hard at convention and at the traditional -- and it succeeds in momentarily and artistically turning your world topsy-turvy. So entrenched are the stereotypical characters of Mr. And Mrs. Santa Claus and their elves, for instance, that it almost hurts the brain to contemplate what Robert Devereaux posits they might do (and who they might really be). And if these sacrosanct deities aren't enough, the author also punctures the cheerful childhood images of the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, not to mention God himself, who is forced to cut short his vacation because of what the Tooth Fairy has led an ultra-virile Santa to do.

What a sublimely perverted, thoroughly repulsive and yet alluring and arousing creation is this Tooth Fairy, who munches on tooth and bone and defecates currency. What supreme unctuousness coats the Easter Bunny's actions and motivations. And just how loyal are those elves - would they do whatever was asked of them?

If these bits tantalize you, all the better, for to say more would surely ruin the experience that is Santa Steps Out. Robert Devereaux, whose shining work I've lauded before, rises so far above the next level here that he is literally flirting with the kind of immortal Art label we generally reserve for the classics - and I mean the likes of Oedipus, Homer, and Euripides. 

This is not your standard horror novel, though there are plenty of horrific scenes, and this is not by any means pornography, though the Republican Right would probably argue the point. This is not for everyone, however, and it's only fair to point this out. Those readers who prefer their world not be rocked by reinvention of beloved childhood icons should steer clear, but those who appreciate a challenge and who revel in the pure and artistic invention which clearly gripped and held Devereaux prisoner until this novel resulted, those readers will be reinvigorated by the feeling of basking in the light and warmth of Art made by one of our peers.

Don't wait until Christmas. Read Santa Steps Out now, and the next yuletide will dawn a different day for you.