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Help A Reader Out: A Possessed Girl In A Convent Turns Thanksgiving Dinner Into Feces

Well, this is different.

Delores writes:

 

I am looking for a horror book that was published between 1980-81. It was a paranormal horror book.

It was about a young woman who breaks her engagement and joined a convent under the influence of a demon. When she get to the convent she scare the (sisters) nuns with paranormal activities like levitation, changing thanksgiving dinner into feces, and having sex with imps. In the end, she climbs on the top of a building and pours gas over herself and light a match. She dies but her skin did not burn.

A priest tried to save her but failed. He believed the foul spirit was in her hidden since she was a child of five.

I would really like to find this book and buy it. Hope you can help.

 

Can anyone help Delores find this book?

Help a Reader Out: Are Myths Fiction or Nonfiction?

Interestingly, this question popped up in keyword searches a number of times, so I’m going to briefly address it.

“Are myths fiction or nonfiction?”

The answer probably depends on who you ask and why. I imagine that if you ask an atheist, you’ll get the answer “fiction”. But in the wonderful world of the Dewey Decimal System, books (and other media) on mythology are in the 200s, the category for philosophy and religion. So for straight mythology or books about mythology, it’s considered nonfiction. Poetry (like Homer’s Odyssey will generally end up in the 800s, with other books of poetry. Yes, poetry is considered nonfiction.

Novels and stories inspired by mythology usually end up getting pulled from the 800s and end up shelved with fiction, though. So if you’re asking because you want to know where Rick Riordan’s books fall on the shelf, you’ll find those in fiction. And if you are asking about a graphic novel, it kind of depends on the library. Some libraries will shelve all graphic novels under 741.5, the number for that format, and some pull the graphic novels into a separate section and shelve them by either subject (my daughter’s elementary) or author (my son’s middle school).

So the answer is that, especially in the library, it’s complicated. And sometimes it is kind of hard to figure out. If you’ve encountered Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods”, it probably falls in nonfiction, even though it is written in the annoying contemporary voice of a fictional character(that’s just my personal opinion, my kids love it) and “updated” versions of many myths. But the novels will end up shelved in fiction. Ultimately, though, the myths of a culture are stories of their gods, and their religion, and as long as people believe in gods, mythology is nonfiction.

It occurs to me that, given that this site focuses on horror fiction, someone reading this might think “Well, what about the Cthulu mythos? That’s a mythology, right? Why isn’t Lovecraft in the 200s?” As it was originally the invention of one person recognized as a writer of fiction, and how that person felt about religion is publicly known, I don’t see why it would be anywhere except in fiction. If you do know a person who worships the Elder Gods, please encourage them to seek help.

Help a Reader Out: A Father and Son Undercover in a Vampire Town

Tracy writes:

I am looking for a series about a father and son ( non-vampires ) living in a town of vampires, the son goes to school and has a list of things he has to do before school to keep his secret. He is chosen to hunt a human in a big vampire hunt but hears of a place where they have a cure and there are no vampires so he’s trying to get there and the vampires are trying to stop him from making it. There were several books in this series. I’m trying to find the title.

Further questioning revealed that this is a YA series. Anyone familiar with it?