The dominant theme of the novel is the legend of Doctor Faustus, and the author uses it in several ways. Doctor Faustus was a medieval scientist who longed for power and forbidden knowledge. Joe's father is also a scientist whose research in the field of genetics is considered pioneering. He becomes the subject of a story by the Star Enquirer, a sleazy publication which calls him "the devil's doctor," and accuses him of Nazi-type experiments. That the family's name is Faustus underscores the parallel.

The theme is taken up again when Joe's English class is assigned the play Dr. Faustus by the sixteenth-century English writer Christopher Marlowe. In Joe's mind, the malicious attacks of the newspaper and the public on his father and the story of the play merge until he half-seriously makes what he considers a pact with the devil in the abandoned...