This essay focuses on Western regional novels of the late Cold War period (1968-1991), analyzing their manner of using the devil figure to variously challenge and/or reinforce mainstream conceptions of evil and come to terms with the meaning and direction of America at a time of crossroads and vast social transfiguration. Scott Poole illustrates in his study Satan in America – appears with great frequency within the corpus of the literature of the American West. The figure of the devil – employed time and again by Americans as a means of culturally construing the perceived enemy Other, as W.
