Devil Is Innocent — Gordon Green

The Devil is Innocent is a robust work of humour depicting life in a rural Ontario community in the 1930s. It is about growing up and discovering the facts of life, love, belief, and local tyranny. The cast of characters -- iconoclastic, earthly, outcast, generous and grasping -- are gathered in fabulous Mountford. The little town is recreated vividly: from school, revival meeting, swimming hole and frozen skating river, to field, forest, livery stable and drug store. In keeping with time place and person, the language and limericks are fresh and uninhibited. There is male chauvinism, as well as surprising anticipation of modern feminism. The reader will have a difficult time deciding how much of this book is fiction and how much of it is autobiography.