Volume 2, Issue 17 August 3 - August 16, 2000

In my grandmother's house there was this gaping, open-mouthed hole underneath the basement stairs. Grandma told me never to go down there, that I'd fall through and crack my skull. I asked her where the hole came from, and she answered termites, an exploded hot water heater, broken pipes. She was always changing her story. So when she was taking her afternoon naps, I'd creep down into the cellar, get on hands and knees, and peak through the slats in the stairs. I knew there was something about that hole. I could hear noises coming from it dull groans and whispers and crying. A strange sulfur heat tickled my nose, and occasionally I could see flashes of orange-blue light licking at the edges of the blackness. That there was no ordinary hole, and judging from everything I'd learned in church and on the TV, I knew exactly where the hole led straight down through the foundations of the house, past the termites, past the center of the earth, to Hell.

Ever since childhood, I've been fascinated with the idea of Hell, of the place where tortured souls live out eternity in torment. Alice K. Turner's History of Hell takes a look at this human preoccupation with the afterlife and shows that ever since people have been roaming the earth, they've been looking down into dark places and seeing the worlds of the dead.

History of Hell is not your typical discussion of the afterlife. Instead of a theological or psychological approach, Turner attacks the subject by asking, What does Hell look like? She examines Hell in terms of geography (even providing maps), and gives us a sort of Rand McNally Road Atlas of the underworld.

She shows us hundreds of different versions of Hell from early Babylonian to New Testament conceptions. We see Dante's vision of the Inferno and Goethe's image of the Devil.

The written information is great (not to mention a perfect reference tool for your next college research paper or weekly meeting with your local satanic cult), but what makes this book stand apart are the pictures. Turner provides one startling color print after another the haunted images of how artists over the years have struggled to come to terms with the idea of death.

Clive Barker has nothing on 15th century painter Hans Memling, who shows pictures of naked humans being devoured by bat-shaped demons. The images are so intense, my flesh crawled and I couldn't look away. Hieronymous Bosch's works combine burning cities, sex-starved people, and pigs in nun's hats to create disorienting and freaky visions. If you want to see just how disturbed the human mind can be, spend a few minutes leafing through the blood and fire splattered pages of this book.

History of Hell covers over 4,000 years of visualized Hell. I guess I'm not the first person to look into a deep, dark hole and see a grotesque image of the afterlife. And believe me, after spending a few hours with this book, I'm not about to go wandering alone in my Grandmother's basement. A-