num_pages: 240
description: A riveting work of immersive nonfiction by a young, award-winning writer that begins with the story of a charismatic man—a Special Ops soldier who believes his PTSD is caused by demons—but becomes about the author’s obsession with the strange and mesmerizing world she encounters.Jennifer Percy spent three years with a group of Christians in rural Georgia who performs exorcisms on the traumatized. Percy was brought to them by a special Ops soldier just back from Afghanistan, the lone survivor of his unit, which was lost during Operation Red Wings. He returned to Georgia and, struggling with PTSD and unable to integrate back into civilian life, considered suicide, until -- as a last resort -- he underwent an exorcism. After experiencing relief, he set out on a mission to bring soldiers from across America to Georgia for a similar deliverance.In the tradition of Dennis Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain, Demon Camp is the strange and riveting tale of Percy’s journey into a world she is fascinated by, suspicious of, sympathetic to, and a world she becomes a part of. As she struggles to understand this soldier’s homecoming she crosses the line between journalist and participant, becoming exorcised herself.This is a book about being haunted -- about the demons in and outside of us. It is about a soldier looking for atonement in a world that is offering none -- an agnostic who is obsessed with an exorcist. It is a mesmerizing account of how people reconcile faith and trauma and a brilliant and passionate work that heralds the arrival of a brave, new talent.
language: English
title: Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism
publisher: Scribner