7.6 /10 1 Votes
Cover artist Peter Clarke Publication date 1992 Pages 192 pp Originally published 1992 Genre Young adult fiction Country Australia | 3.8/5 Goodreads Language English Media type Print (Paperback) ISBN 978-0-8027-8154-3 Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Del-Del is a psychological young adult novel written by Australian author Victor Kelleher and published in 1992. It deals with themes of loss and apparent demonic possession.
Contents
Plot
Del-Del is narrated by Beth, a teenage girl whose younger brother, a child prodigy named Sam, begins exhibiting strange behaviour on the anniversary of the death of their sister Laura. He begins to refer to himself as Del-Del, and acts out in increasingly destructive and harmful ways. Eventually the family begins to believe that he has become the victim of demonic possession, and seeks a variety of solutions. Eventually they successfully banish the Del-Del personality with the assistance of an exorcist, only to have it return once more, this time in the form of an alien consciousness inhabiting Sam's body. This being, also calling itself Del-Del, claims to be a traveller from the constellation Delphinus. Eventually it is determined that the various personalities of Del-Del are in fact products of Sam's overactive mind, the result of his inability to accept the loss of his sister.
Reception
Del-Del holds a rating of 3.7 out of 5 on GoodReads, and was nominated for a Ditmar Award in the year that it was released. Publishers Weekly criticised the book, calling it 'padded', and stated that "(the) pat resolution may annoy readers who have the persistence to reach the novel's end."