''Del-Del'' is a psychological

young adult novel Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults. The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...

written by Australian author

Victor Kelleher Victor Kelleher (born 1939) is an Australian author. Kelleher was born in London and moved to Africa with his parents, at the age of fifteen. He spent the next twenty years travelling and studying in Africa, before moving to New Zealand. Kelle ...

and published in 1992. It deals with themes of loss and apparent demonic possession.

Plot

''Del-Del'' is narrated by Beth, a teenage girl whose younger brother, a child prodigy named Sam, begins exhibiting strange behavior on the anniversary of the death of their sister Laura. He begins to refer to himself as Del-Del, and acts out in increasingly destructive and harmful ways. Eventually the family begins to believe that he has become the victim of demonic possession, and seeks a variety of solutions. Eventually they successfully banish the Del-Del personality with the assistance of an exorcist, only to have it return once more, this time in the form of an alien consciousness inhabiting Sam's body. This being, also calling itself Del-Del, claims to be a traveler from the constellation

Delphinus Delphinus (Pronounced or ) is a small constellation in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, close to the celestial equator. Its name is the Latin version for the Greek word for dolphin (). It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd c ...

. Eventually it is determined that the various personalities of Del-Del are in fact products of Sam's overactive mind, the result of his inability to accept the loss of his sister.

Reception

''Del-Del'' holds a rating of 3.7 out of 5 on

GoodReads Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and read ...

, and was nominated for a

Ditmar Award The Ditmar Award (formally the Australian SF ("Ditmar") Award; formerly the "Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award") has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention (the "Natcon") to recognise a ...

in the year that it was released.

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

criticized the book, calling it 'padded', and stated that "(the) pat resolution may irritate readers who continue to reach the novel's end."''Del-Del'' reviewed at ''Publishers Weekly'', February 3, 1992
/ref>

References

{{reflist 1992 Australian novels Australian young adult novels Novels set in Sydney