Born in Georgia in 1911, Zebedee Armstrong worked most of his life picking cotton on the same farm where his father had done so before him. In the early 1970s, just a few years after the death of his wife, Armstrong received a vision of an angel sent from God to share the message of the coming end of days. From that point on, Armstrong began to create apocalypse calendars. These red and white expressions were painted on many of his possessions in the small house in which he lived. Over 1,500 objects became symbols and warnings, and eventually they came to be read as works of art, finding their way into museum exhibits.

Armstrong’s vision, haunting and lonely, has echoes in Jamie Quatro’s latest novel, TWO-STEP DEVIL, where a similarly remarkable old man transforms his space into religious storytelling inspired by the visions he sees throughout his life.

"Quatro’s book is emotionally difficult, incredibly compelling and always beautiful. She has penned a novel of dark realism and dreamy insight, struggle and possibility."

Winston, who is 70 years old in 2014 and known as the Prophet, had his first vision in 1964: a cinematic scene of a bridge with no other side. Over the years, the visions came with increasing frequency and shaped the Prophet’s life in rural Alabama. He became especially beholden to them alone after his wife’s death and his son’s flight to a more conventional life. Occasionally selling vegetables from his garden and taking donations to sing healing songs to the sick, the Prophet is seen as a mild-mannered religious eccentric to those who know him, though his son, Zeke, worries about his health due to both his visions and his asbestos-filled lungs.

One day, as the Prophet is scavenging for wood and saw blades on which to paint his visions, he sees a young teenage girl with two adults at an abandoned gas station. As she is driven away in a car, he sees that her hands are zip-tied together and is certain she mouths “help me” through the window. Over the next few weeks, the Prophet returns to this place. When he sees the girl again, he formulates a plan to rescue her, coming to believe that she is part of a God-given plan to save the world.

Michael is just 14 and motherless. The foster family who was meant to take her in and protect her groomed her for sex work and then pimped her out, using drugs to placate and pacify her. Her rescue by the Prophet takes her out of a horrific but known world into a strange and oddly promising one. The Prophet helps Michael detox, and when she is stronger, she helps him with his art and tends to him with sweetness and patience. As peaceful as their days are, Michael is the Prophet’s secret and soon reveals his big plans for her. But Michael has a secret and plans of her own. Each must take a risk to put into motion the future they dream of. Each draws strength in the other and the new perspectives, both honest and fantastical, they bring to their unlikely relationship.

TWO-STEP DEVIL is powerful in a manner that balances extremes --- quiet moments, horrific violence, heartbreak, joy, self-discovery and fate. Both Winston and Michael are very finely drawn and totally unforgettable, set in a tale that is timely and timeless. The Prophet’s life work, like that of the real-life Armstrong, is fascinating and frightening, gentle and commanding. Michael is singular, but still her story is all too familiar.

Quatro’s book is emotionally difficult, incredibly compelling and always beautiful. She has penned a novel of dark realism and dreamy insight, struggle and possibility.