"White Devils" by James Robert Baker: the unearthing of a cursed novel

Published in French for the first time in February 2026 by Editions Monsieur Toussaint Louverture, "Diables blancs"(White Devils) is an unpublished novel by American writer James Robert Baker (1946-1997), hidden in drawers since the 1990s. This demonic, corrosive and hilarious tale is a major discovery for fans of noir and transgressive literature.

James Robert Baker, who died almost 30 years ago, was an American screenwriter and novelist whose violent, satirical and deeply political work left its mark on the underground literature of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1993, he published Tim and Pete, a novel that blends queer activism, political violence and devastating darkness in the age of AIDS. The book caused such a scandal in the U.S. that no publisher wanted to work with him. Ostracized and censored, Baker continued to write until his suicide in 1997.

White Devils was written in 1994, in the midst of a period of rejection. The manuscript, rejected by every American publishing house, had never been published, either in the U.S. or elsewhere. It lay dormant in drawers for more than thirty years, until Editions Monsieur Toussaint Louverture, founded by Dominique Bordes in Bordeaux in 2004, unearthed the forgotten treasure.

The novel tells the story of Tom Dunbar, an author who enjoyed phenomenal success with a true crime novel in the style of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood", but whose second book was a flop. He and his wife Beth, "sublime and poisonous", find themselves in a financial abyss, to the point of risking losing their ocean-view home in Pacific Palisades, near Malibu.

Beth devises a plan: to extract money from her father Bud Sturges, a wealthy, ultra-conservative best-selling author. When Bud refuses, a dark thought creeps into the couple's mind: what if Bud dies? The story, structured in seven chapters purporting to be transcriptions of tapes recorded by Tom as a confession, plunges the reader into a whirlwind of madness and blindness.

In a single, taut, implacable voice, Baker delivers a searing satire of an elite of parvenus, revealing their abjectness beneath the veneer of intellectualism. Packed with literary and cinematic references, White Devils is a very dark, disturbing and politically incorrect novel, which also describes a destructive love story.

Translated from English (USA) by Yoko Lacour, this 288-page novel is an ideal introduction to the work of this accursed author, who became a cult figure after his death. Monsieur Toussaint Louverture, a publisher specializing in the digging up of forgotten treasures and praised for its courage, has finally made it possible for this work, brilliant in form and corrosive in content, to see the light of day.

"Diables blancs" was published in February 2026 by Monsieur Toussaint Louverture - 288 pages/20 euros approx.