Hatcher McCord is an evening-news presenter who has found himself in
Hell and is struggling to explain his bad fortune. He's not the only one
to suffer this fate--in fact, he's surrounded by an outrageous cast of
characters, including Humphrey Bogart, William Shakespeare, and almost
all of the popes and most of the U.S. presidents. The question may be
not who is in Hell but who isn't.
McCord is living with Anne Boleyn in the afterlife, but their happiness
is, of course, constantly derailed by her obsession with Henry VIII (and
the removal of her head at rather inopportune moments). One day McCord
meets Dante's Beatrice, who believes there is a way out of Hell, and the
next morning, during an exclusive on-camera interview with Satan, McCord
realizes that Satan's omniscience, which he has always credited for the
perfection of Hell's torments, may be a mirage--and Butler is off on a
madcap romp about good, evil, free will, and the possibility of escape.
Butler's depiction of Hell is original, intelligent, and fiercely comic,
a book Dante might have celebrated.