Rickey Fayne’s The Devil Three Times is a hauntingly inventive debut that blends historical fiction, horror, and magical realism into a genre-fluid exploration of generational trauma, spiritual inheritance, and the eternal tension between sin and salvation. With the power of a Southern sermon and the elegance of literary fiction, Fayne delivers a novel that is both a fierce reckoning with the past and a prophetic vision of the present.
This is not a story about the Devil we think we know. It’s a story about a Devil we come to understand. A Devil who walks with Black families through centuries of suffering, grief, and resistance—not to torment them, but perhaps to redeem himself in the process. Set against the backdrop of America’s darkest chapters, this book is both epic in scope and intimate in soul.
A Story Rooted in Blood and Spirit
The narrative begins with Yetunde, a West African woman shackled in the belly of a slave ship, her only companion the spirit of her dead sister. When the Devil appears—not in fire and brimstone but in contemplative conversation—he offers her power in exchange for a pact that will stretch across generations.
From this foundational act, the novel unfurls like a family tree watered in sorrow and flame. As the Devil visits Yetunde’s descendants during their moments of deepest crisis—Lucille in the Reconstruction South, Asa during the rise of segregation, Cassandra during the Civil Rights era, James in the shadow of mass incarceration—he becomes a witness to history and a participant in each soul’s intimate struggle.
Each encounter is a meditation on power, freedom, identity, and spiritual survival. Fayne does not offer easy answers. Instead, he poses a question through every chapter: If God has turned away, is the Devil truly your enemy—or your last remaining hope?
Character Portraits Across Time
Fayne crafts a cast of characters that span eras and experiences, yet all carry the mark of Yetunde’s initial sacrifice. The Devil’s presence links their lives like a haunting refrain.
Generational Anchors:
- Yetunde: The origin of the curse or blessing, depending on one’s lens. Her strength is elemental, her decision generationally consequential.
- Lucille: A healer and conjure woman navigating spirituality and survival in post-slavery Tennessee.
- Asa: A man who “passes” for white, torn between ancestry and ambition.
- Virgil and Louis: Brothers shaped by jealousy and violence, mirroring the tragic echoes of Cain and Abel.
- Cassandra: A clairvoyant tormented by ghosts—literal and metaphorical—who speaks to the dead but cannot escape the past.
- James and Porter: Modern bearers of a cursed memory, struggling to hold onto family amid systemic collapse and spiritual silence.
What unites them is not only blood, but the burden of legacy. Fayne allows each voice to shine individually, while still contributing to a collective, ancestral chorus that resounds with pain and perseverance.
Themes That Cut to the Bone
This book is thick with metaphor and meaning, drawing on religious symbolism, African folklore, and socio-political commentary. The Devil is not merely a character; he is a philosophical device through which Fayne interrogates the foundations of belief, morality, and Black survival.
Major Themes:
- Faith vs. Despair: Can the Devil offer salvation when God seems absent? Fayne questions traditional theology in favor of spiritual pluralism and personal agency.
- Generational Trauma: Each descendant inherits not just memory, but the consequences of past bargains—emotional, spiritual, and psychological legacies that can’t be escaped.
- Racial Identity and Passing: Through Asa and others, the novel explores how whiteness is both a mask and a weapon, complicating notions of freedom and betrayal.
- Myth and Memory: The Devil’s return across time mirrors the act of storytelling itself—how history is preserved, distorted, and inherited.
- The Cost of Protection: Protection always comes at a price. The novel asks: what would you trade to keep your family safe—and what happens when the bargain follows your descendants?
Structure and Form: Like Scripture, Like Spellwork
The novel is structured like a sacred text, broken into four major parts: Paradise Lost, Sins of the Father, Troubled Water, and All God’s Children Got Wings. These sections act as spiritual epochs, each layered with symbolic weight and narrative transformation.
The storytelling is nonlinear and episodic, echoing oral tradition. Each chapter feels like a parable, complete in itself yet deeply interwoven with the whole. Fayne uses repetition, echo, and prophecy to maintain cohesion across a shifting timeline.
For some readers, the non-chronological structure may feel disorienting at first. But by the final chapters, its cumulative emotional impact becomes evident—the disjointedness is the point. Time, for those burdened by generational pain, is never linear.
Literary Voice: Rich, Rooted, and Revelatory
Fayne’s prose is neither hurried nor simplistic. It’s deliberate, musical, and layered. His language is deeply informed by Black vernacular, Southern cadences, and biblical rhythm, giving the book a gospel-like gravity that turns every page into testimony.
Notable strengths in the prose include:
- Powerful dialogue that often reads like scripture or incantation
- Vivid, sensory-rich description that immerses readers in both natural and spiritual worlds
- Shifting narrative voices that reflect each character’s time, place, and inner world
Fayne has a rare ability to make the spiritual literal and the literal spiritual, blurring the line between myth and memory, between curse and covenant.
Standout Elements
1. A Reimagined Devil
This isn’t the devil of fire and pitchforks. This Devil is tired, tender, and terrifying in equal measure. He weeps, reasons, and questions God’s silence with a theologian’s anguish. He is one of the most complex literary embodiments of evil—and grace—in recent fiction.
2. Emotional Multitudes
Fayne doesn’t offer easy catharsis. Each descendant’s story is both a triumph and a tragedy. The weight of the past is never truly lifted, but it is examined with care and clarity.
3. Magical Realism That Deepens History
Fayne uses ghosts, visions, and diabolical visitations not as decoration, but as ways of accessing historical truth that realism alone cannot bear.
4. Radical Spiritual Inquiry
This is a novel that does not fear blasphemy. It critiques institutional religion while honoring spiritual resilience. It’s a book that will move you—whether you believe in heaven, hell, or something in between.
Where It Stumbles
Though a triumph overall, a few aspects might challenge readers:
- Narrative Complexity: The multigenerational, nonlinear approach—while artistically justified—demands active reading and occasional backtracking to keep track of characters and time periods.
- Thematic Density: There is so much theological and historical exploration that some passages feel more like essays than fiction. This won’t appeal to all readers.
- Open-Ended Resolution: Some character arcs resolve emotionally, but not narratively, which may leave readers yearning for closure.
These critiques, however, are small compared to the novel’s larger accomplishments.
Related Works for Enthusiasts
If The Devil Three Times resonates with you, consider reading:
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – for its exploration of generational trauma and African diasporic legacy
- Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James – for its mythological approach to African storytelling
- The Trees by Percival Everett – for its blend of horror, satire, and racial history
- God Help the Child by Toni Morrison – for its lyrical pain and powerful spiritual inquiry
Final Thoughts: A Landmark Debut
The Devil Three Times is a tour de force that dares to humanize the inhuman, to find redemption in the unredeemable, and to illuminate history with a supernatural fire. It is a novel that demands to be read slowly, absorbed fully, and passed along like sacred scripture.
Fayne has not only written a memorable debut—he has introduced a bold new theology of the Black American experience, one where ancestral memory, resistance, and spiritual reclamation walk hand in hand.
This is not just a book to read. It is a legacy to bear witness to.