Patron's Choice: Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

As many of you know, the author, journalist and encyclopedia of all horror knowledge, Kim Newman, has been our Horror Book Club patron for many years and every year he picks a book for us to read and discuss. This year he has gone for another classic, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg. Here’s the summary from Goodreads: Set in early eighteenth-century Scotland, the novel recounts the corruption of a boy of strict Calvinist parentage by a mysterious stranger under whose influence he commits a series of murders. The stranger assures the boy that no sin can affect the salvation of an elect person. The reader, while recognizing the stranger as Satan, is prevented by the subtlety of the novel's structure from finally deciding whether, for all his vividness and wit, he is more than a figment of the boy's imagination. The meeting will start at 7pm and finish between 9.00 and 10pm (BST), with breaks in between. Just a reminder that the pub lets us to use the room at no charge so please do purchase drinks/food from the bar. Bringing in your own food from outside the pub is not allowed!