On and on it goes, ever aimlessly. And by the time Hell is over, there’s only one thing that Butler has really made clear. It’s that he likes this world, with its infinite possibilities and surprises around ever corner. He even likes the grisly dismemberings and reconstitutions whereby hell’s denizens can be torn apart over and over again, a cycle that this book plays for mindless laughs.
Hatcher McCord winds up liking hell too. For one thing, almost everyone this newsman ever knew in both his private and professional lives has wound up in the same place, so going to hell must be some kind of occupational hazard. For another, it’s cozy. And hell turns out to be a great equalizer. Hitler and his great admirer Leni Riefenstahl (“He had me at ‘Fellow Germans,’” she recalls) are on the same footing with celebrity bloggers.
As for those bloggers, here’s what hell has in store for them: They are eternally saddled with the same cellulite and heavy bling that they used to mock. Now and then Butler’s hell is a nice place to visit after all.
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