NYRB Classics: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
by Ron Hogan
Another gem from the NYRB Classics line, handpicked by editor Edwin Frank:
"The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by the early 19th-century Scottish writer James Hogg, is a rich and complicated tale of madness that bears comparison with Wuthering Heights. The book's point of departure is in theology, specifically the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, which holds that our spiritual fate, our salvation or damnation, has already been decided by God and nothing we do is going to alter it one way or the other. In Hogg's book, this doctrine is the occasion for an extraordinary psychological exploration, a portrait of an unmistakably damned soul who is utterly persuaded of his perfect righteousness, believing that for him 'everything is permitted.' The psychic meltdown that accompanies his belated realization that perhaps he has got that wrong is truly harrowing. This horror story (it helped inspire Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) seems all the more to the point at a time when fundamentalists are running rampant both at home and abroad."
