Black Bottle Man
Black Bottle Man by Craig Russel is about a man named Rembrandt who must find a champion to fight the Devil after an unfortunate series of events when he was just ten years old. The story opens with Rembrandt now 90 years old. The sequence of the story then goes back in time in some chapters to his childhood in 1927/1928 before skipping ahead at other points. Meanwhile, there is another story line weaved in with Gail and her husband Raymond. The chronology of the story is a bit awkward at the opening and it takes readers a bit to get into the story as they must figure out who these people are, connections, and conflicts. Any sort of reader who struggles with comprehension or stories that lack continuity will abandon the story before getting too far in.
Going back in time, Rembrandt, at age 10, is the only child among a family of siblings. In neighboring farms, his father’s sibling’s family is still without children despite all the effort in trying. An early part of the story is focused on this effort/ desire with references to “it”. The Black Bottle Man is the Devil, and he shows up with ink that when applied with special instructions, children will be born. Rembrandt’s aunts Annie and Emma use the Black Bottle Man’s charms and each become pregnant. Annie’s husband is distraught and upset by what they have done, so he leaves and essentially abandons her. Uncle Thompson and Pa challenge the Devil and end up making a Pact with him, that includes Rembrandt, to find someone to challenge the Devil and release the souls of Annie and Emma. Part of the Pact is that they cannot stay in a city or town any longer than twelve days to find their champion. Through a series of events, Pa and Uncle Thompson end up dying and Rembrandt is left alone at the age of fifteen to complete the Pact. He eventually makes his way back to finding his mother, meeting his cousins, finding Uncle Billy - who also dies trying to beat the Devil, and then finally weaving his story with Gail who is able in a sense to beat the Devil.
There are a lot of spiritual elements in this book. It isn’t just a fight with the Devil, but there are also special hobo signs that are learned and used throughout that affect situations. Rembrandt seems to think these are good signs. It is essentially like a form of magic by making symbols. Religion is displayed as a force of condemnation and solace. In the end, Rembrandt stops Gail from fully beating the Devil as he seems to realize that the Devil wants another opportunity to challenge God. And ends with telling Gail “You’ve done it. You’ve beat the Devil. You see? Don’t give the Devil what he wants, and you’ve beat him” (131).
There is some profanity in this book. Readers will find “damned” sprinkled in a few times, as well as “son-of-a-bitch,” and a few instances of God’s name taken in vain.
There is a “Reader’s Guide” at the end with questions. These questions relate to different topics of the story - music and history to name a few, as well as religion. Under the religion, readers will find questions like “Many of the characters in the novel have sinned. Who can God forgive? Who might not be forgiven?”, “If the Bible is the expression of God’s views from 2000 years ago, could his opinions have changed?”, “Can prayers influence God?”, as well as a few others. The story does end with realization to not give into temptation that the Devil wins when he gets what he wants. And yet, the scene does end with Gail giving into the temptation to eat Rembrandt’s toast when he leaves the table. Ultimately, highlighting the struggle of humanity.
This novel is listed as Teen Fiction, however, I don’t think this story would appeal to most teen readers. I would place this more as an adult fiction book. Just because a character is a teenager for a portion of the book, doesn’t place it in that genre, at least for me. The story is more placed in 2007 with Rembrandt 90 years old and switches to earlier times to give his past story. Personally, this was not my favorite. I didn’t care for the premise of the story; however, at the same time I can appreciate the author’s line and context to explore certain themes. There are some phrases and wording that are beautifully written and the development of the story took a lot of care and time for development. A lot of effort clearly went into the telling of the story. Unfortunately, it just fell flat for me and it isn’t something I could see teaching or using with students.
