| Title | : | The Devil in Silver |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1400069866 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781400069866 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 412 |
| Publication | : | First published August 21, 2012 |
| Awards | : | Shirley Jackson Award Novel (Finalist) (2012) |
The Devil in Silver Reviews
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I was looking forward to this horror novel, and—as often happens when I look forward to something—I was disappointed. First of all, the idea that it was written by a young black man—well, young as far as I’m concerned, he was forty when he wrote it—a fan of H.P. Lovecraft who wrote another book based on Lovecraft’s most racist short story (The Ballad of Black Tom, based on “The Horror at Red Hook”) intrigued me. Plus, the book has a first-class “elevator pitch”: think One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets the Legend of Theseus and the Minotaur. How could I resist?
Its hero is a big man called Pepper who finds himself confined to a mental institution (for observation) after becoming embroiled in a fight with three undercover policeman. Just as he is beginning to adjust to the other patients and the staff, he becomes aware of “the devil”--a being who is confined behind a silver door at the other end of the ward, a being who preys on the other patients at night. And—if the testimony of other patients can be trusted—this other being, superhumanly strong, is equipped with horns.
Lavalle’s writing style is likable and disarming, allowing him to perform old-fashioned gothic tricks and other tricks too (direct addresses to the reader, lengthy digressions, unexpected shifts in point of view) in an offhand manner, appearing casual, even inartful. In addition, his hero is likable and his fellow patients are people you can root for.
So what’s wrong? First of all, Lavalle’s prose, although likable, fails to make music or create an atmosphere, two things I believe essential to the hypnotic spell cast by any first-class horror writer. The major difficulty, though, has to do with the writer’s theme, something I can explain best by talking about the meaning of the novel”s title, The Devil in Silver.
It is a clever title. The reader assumes it refers to the horned creature confined behind a "silver" door, but it actually has another meaning entirely. When Pepper tells Louis—a minor character, a relative visiting one of the patients—about the horned being, Louis tells him a story about silver mining. He explains that silver “lets out fumes when it is mined,” and that these fumes, after frequent exposure, often cause “delusions” in the minds of the miners:Do you know what people would say, in these mining towns, when they saw one of these miners falling apart? Walking through town muttering and swinging at phantoms? The said the Devil in Silver got them…. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
That’s the problem with Lavalle’s novel right here: the theme. You see, our author says, there is no real monster to be battled, for instead it is an evil institution—namely, the hospital—which is responsible for the patient casualties. Trying to kill a monster is merely scapegoating, for it is only by recognizing the evil in institutions that we can can deliver each other from evil.
“You’re saying we’re just making this thing up,” Pepper said quietly….
“I’m saying they were dying,” Louis said. “They were definitely not making that up. But it wasn’t a monster that was killing them. It was the mine.”
There’s nothing wrong with such a theme, for another kind of w0rk. In fact, it might make a good adventure movie, where a group of oppressed people stop picking on each other and instead go after the real evil: a corporation headed by an orange-haired, pussy-grabbing, hamburger-devouring bully. Hmmm. I just might read that kind of book myself.
But it's definitely not the right sort of theme for a horror novel. Horror, although not as conservative as the detective story, is nevertheless a conservative genre, where evil is ancient--perhaps as ancient as the cosmos--and must often be battled with instruments from traditions long abandoned and ignored. Of course there may be evil modern institutions too, but then these institution must harbor actual monsters, more real and terrible than the false monsters they use to fool us, more real and terrible than themselves.
If there is a ‘devil in silver,” it should never be a mere delusion. No, it should be a real devil behind a real door. (Unless of course the "devil" and its " door" are illusions that reveal something even more sinister, like the dark heart of the cosmos itself.) -
3.5 Stars.
Pepper has entered the mental institute. No real reason why. He is not insane. Well not much. He was taking up for his sometime girlfriend against her ex-husband and assaulted 3 plainclothes cops. He is supposed to be confined for 72 hours. Yeah right.
These characters are so fully described that I felt like I was right there with them. Shut up. I know it's the nut house. Dorry! I have a thing for old broads and this one was spectacular!
I kinda think she might be me in a few years. Back off me dudes.
Pepper realizes there is much more going on in the nut house after he is almost killed one night by the resident devil. People go missing in this place and its always deemed a suicide. The devil is there.
In the mist dark figures move and twist," Pepper said to her. "Was all this for real or some kind of hell?"
Ms Chris put one hand on her hip. "That from the Bible?"
"That's Iron Maiden," Pepper said.
This is horror but not in your face scariness. It terrified me how easy it is to be inhaled into the system and no one knows where you are.
The book does have a time period where the story does get draggy but I enjoyed the heck out of it. I probably laughed at times I should not have. But well it's me we are talking about.
If you haven't caused a scene in a psych unit, it's just because you haven't been inside long enough. Rock on Ms. Dorry. -
Sometimes I will continue reading a book even when I know its hopeless purely out of a sense of loyalty to the author. This was certainly the case here. I appreciated all of Mr. LaValle's efforts, and I actually quite like the way he writes, but the plot was just all over the place, and the premise of the story, while initially really captivating, takes several strange turns and completely loses itself, eventually becoming unrecognizable. In fact, the novel I finished was almost a completely different one from the one I started, and not in a good way. However, so appealing is his writing and so immediate was my connection to his characters that I stayed with this lengthy novel out of loyalty and a sense of duty to the author and his characters, and I think that really speaks volumes to his talent as a writer. Its never boring, I wish he had worked on it a bit longer, maybe had a more emphatic editor? There were too many wonderful stories competing to get out in this one novel, leaving it all a bit of a jumbled mess.
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For any of you fans of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, here's an updated and fully horrorized version, complete with updated (and unfortunately real) conditions in mental health facilities, updated standard practices for lazy law enforcement, and even a supremely depressing commentary on a modern
Dead Souls.
I honestly think this works out just fine as a very nasty horror without adding the special patient that the inmates call the Devil. We don't even need him running around with a bull's head, although the literary part of me LOVES how he's the Minotaur in the middle of the Labyrinth.
The true horror is the conditions of these silver mines. The institution kills its inmates. Be it neglect, poverty of the body and spirit, the way no one cares once you get in. Or the way it's so freaking easy to get committed. It's not about mental health treatment, especially with bare-bones budgets, minimal training, and substandard conditions. The people on the outside with any power are lining their pockets and don't care because their lives never intersect with those on the inside. The people on the inside, even the caretakers and doctors, are nearly as powerless under the grind of the machine as the people being drugged to the gills.
For they're just being warehoused. Drugged into stupefaction. And while this book doesn't go into the overflow problem and how many sufferers are just shunted into prison, the picture here is clear.
Kesey said it clear and LaValle reiterates: we're all stuck in the machine and can't see a way out of it.
This is good horror, but it's better commentary on us. Definitely a must-read for Kesey fans who want a big upgrade for our modern world. -
Book Info: Genre: Literary Fiction (per publisher); Dark Fiction (per me)
Reading Level: Adult
Recommended for: Anyone who likes a great story
My Thoughts: This was one of those books I picked up because there wasn’t anything else that really appealed to me, and it just looked strange enough that I would enjoy it. Pepper seems like the kind of character I would enjoy, and I also tend to like stories sent in mental institutions. But imagine my delight when I found descriptions like this one:
“...Queens, New York. The most ethnically diverse region not just in the United States, but on the entire planet; a distinction it’s held for more than four decades. In Queens, you will find Korean kids who sound like black kids. Italians who sound like Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans who sound like Italians. Third-generation Irish who sound like old Jews. That’s Queens. Not a melting pot, not even a tossed salad, but an all you-can-eat, mix-and-match buffet.”
This is the sort of book that will give people with a phobia of madness or being committed nightmares. This is a paranoiac’s vision of a mental institution, a place designed and developed for the sole purpose of disappearing those who are so far beneath society’s notice that no one will even care when they vanish. Designed and developed to house a monster. But who will believe mental patients when they claim a beast is killing them?
I was put in on a 72-hour hold once – thankfully I was released on-time – and there do tend to be a lot of amusing incidents on a psych ward. For instance, the problems with the television lounge and the person in control of the remote can cause amusing incidents like this one:
“...it was a ‘news program.’ Cue the exodus! Two-thirds of the patients scrambled. The Air Force’s finest fighter squadrons don’t move as fast.”
These sorts of humorous interludes are very necessary, as this is a really freaky book.
However, this author is really amazing. His style is such that is draws you in and holds you. Take this example, talking about a man who ends up being scapegoated for events that take place late in the book. “Only a day after he’d left New Hyde, no one at the hospital could remember the dude’s name. (His name was Robert Paulson. His name was Robert Paulson.)” A wonderful homage to Fight Club and a great touch. So, I can heartily recommend this book to folks that won’t get freaked out by the content, or those who aren’t triggered by the concept of an asylum. Great stuff!
Disclosure: I received a paperback ARC of this book from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Synopsis: New Hyde Hospital’s psychiatric ward has a new resident. It also has a very, very old one.
Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He’s not mentally ill, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he can’t quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his first night, he’s visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic who’s been on the ward for decades and knows all its secrets; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD, who tries desperately to send alarms to the outside world; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl who acts as the group’s enforcer. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die? -
A sketch-ily run mental hospital in Queens with Dickensian characters, and a devil with a buffalo head terrorizing the patients. What more could you want?
LaValle's imagination is only matched by his narrative daring. There are times when--seemingly--the plot meanders, or there is not plot, and times where he goes metafictional, or into the POV of a big rat, and yet, somehow (still not quite sure how he did it) it all fits together and the story is about the lost and the found, so, you know, it's about us, all of us, beautiful warts and all. -
Calling this a horror novel feels far too simplistic. This is a fascinating view on the state of mental hospitals in the United States. This had much less stereotypical "horror" than I was anticipating, but I still riveted through 90% of this. Can't wait to read more of LaValle's books in the future. Which should I read next?
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I want to take that book and club the main character to death with it!
Meet Pepper, idiot par excellence. Seriously. He tried to help a neighbour whom he fancied, beat up her colleague/ex, was stopped by three undercover cops that he mistook for gangbangers, beat those up as well and - you guessed it - that didn't go so well for him. Due to a technicality, he wasn't booked, but sent to New Hyde Hospital’s psychiatric ward for a 72-hour observation period. But since he really is an idiot, his behavior gave the staff some bullshit excuse to drug him out of his mind. Fast forward a month and he's still in there. Only by now it has become apparent that all is not well in this closed-off, almost claustrophobic world of helplessness, drugs, abuse of power and more drugs. And I'm not talking about stable people getting drugs that make them forget their own name until they are unable to even know if they are sitting or walking. No, there is something stalking this ward and staff as well as patients and the occasionally looking-in cops are all pretending they don't know about it.
This story is not just about Pepper's time in the psychiatric hospital, it's also the story of all the other people there, patients as well as staff. It's about people behaving like zombies even when they aren't patients at New Hyde, it's about chronical underfunding, about a flawed system (and the author is well informed about the state of affairs in other countries, too, not just the US), about people enjoying abusing this system and enjoying to grate others down until even the sanest person wants to scream non-stop.
As such, the book managed to submerge me nicely in this forsaken, dull and monotone world. Everything is grey (or white-tile). There is only stagnation and resignation. The reader thus gets sucked into the hospital's routine and I could hardly believe what was going on here. From patients being strapped to their beds for any length of time (whether they've actually done something to warrant that or not doesn't seem to matter to anyone), to patients actually dying. Oh yes, people are dying here. But hey, it's just the crazy ones, right? Yeah ...
I liked that the author incorporated so much social commentary and showed the visiting families and how hard the situation is on them as much as a certain pizza baker and his ridiculous notion of what "mental health patient" means. We got cops and politicians (or at least city officials) as well and it was eerie to realize, just like the MC did, that of course they don't want to change the status quo since they aren't affected by it. So long as a system works for person A, person A isn't likely inclined to change the system just because person B might be affected negatively. It's how the world works, as sad as that is.
What really got under my skin was Pepper (the MC) and his stupid-ass decisions though. I know that they were necessary to keep him (and therefore the reader) on site so we could follow the story , but come on! There were a couple of situations you could attribute to bad luck or even malice from some overworked and underpaid cop or a less-than-caring doctor, but more often than not, he was just doing something stupid for no particular reason other than him being a blockhead. Made me want to scream!
Admittedly, I didn't care too much about the characters. Maybe because my senses got dulled as if I had received all those pills along with them. However, it was nevertheless touching when or when or when . So I guess I was invested in the story after all.
A story that has a lot to say about people's perceptions of their own lives, of other people, of social and political structures, throughout history even. A book about the monsters inside all of us (though I still think the conclusion was anti-climactic AF). Not the best or creepiest thing ever, but the psychological suspense and situational claustrophobia/anxiety worked quite well for me.
P.S.: One of the most interesting things in this book, for me, was in the afterword when the author admitted that he had been institutionalized (we don't know for how long or why but he hates the fucking place so his experience must have been horrible). -
5🌟
It's the society that's untethered yet we're institutionalized. -
A joyous marriage of literary aesthetics and genre gratification, The Devil in Silver storms the thematic territory staked by Ken Kesey in 1962; but unlike One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest, LaValle's novel offers a more compassionate look at the human interactions between mental health professionals and their captive patients, that is, whenever the author isn't bringing down righteous fury on a publicly funded system that profits off of neglect, and how this relationship bears a troubling resemblance to life for all in a society that kowtows to the trickle-up parasitism of unchecked capitalism. Also, there is a geriatric minotaur preying on patients. Written in an omniscient authorial remove from the inhabitants of New Hyde Hospital’s psychiatric ward, it's clear that LaValle loves each of his characters dearly, from his hoary devil down to the fat rat living in the ceiling. This creates an intimate tone with the reader, one in which the narrative isn't afraid to digress to better contextualize an offhand act of cruelty or cold-heartedness. Generous and patient characterizations all around, a warm sense of humor, and a strong instinct for when tragedy and violence are needed, make this a colorful horror novel that will appeal to a greater literary audience.
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A super-sized Theseus takes on external and internal monsters within the vividly rendered walls of a mental institution in Queens. Always surprising, full of three-D characters, a little bit scary (for unexpected reasons) but even more poignant. Most importantly, Victor LaValle's prose is just plain fun.
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This book scared the heck out of me and yet it wasn’t quite a horror novel in my opinion.
There are so many incredible layers to this story. It broke my heart and had me giggling at times. LaValle is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors and the way he writes characters blows my mind; truly lovable and whole.
Also Pepper and Sue 4ever. -
I am just as shocked that I found "The Devil in Silver" to be a three star read. This was a tough one for me to get through. I almost DNFed it at one point because I just found myself getting bored with this book. I think the reason why is that it started off as kind of a potential horror book that turned to thriller/mystery than a dialogue of sorts on how persons in our country are treated with mental health issues, to the current state of prejudice that exists in the U.S., to immigration, back to horror and back around again. I just kept waiting for an epic payoff and it didn't come.
"The Devil in Silver" starts off with a man named "Pepper" being carted off by the police to the New Hyde Hospital. Pepper we find out got into a fight with off duty cops he dropped him off there by saying that he has to be crazy to be fighting the police. I would say though that this is where the story lost me. Pepper is a white guy, a big old white guy, but white. I just can't believe in New York City the police would be this blatant to do this to someone who is not a POC. But that's just me and my hashtag lizard truth talking right now.
I say this about Pepper though cause it took me a while to realize that Pepper was white. Like almost to the 60 percent point when someone mentions his hair and I realized wait, Pepper isn't black? And then I realized another character was black and I think for a second I went into a momentary state of what the hell? Did I read this before and forget? And then I had to go back and re-read chapters and then finally gave up.
Pepper we realize is a bit lost. He has a crush on a neighbor and thought he was helping her out and now is locked up for a mandatory 72 hour hold. No I don't know if this is legal or not, since LaValle did some research on this I am going to guess this is legal, but it does suck.
And from there we start reading a book about the general everyday horrors of being in a psychiatric unit. I know that LaValle is trying to provoke a reaction to us as readers. And believe me I felt pity, anger, and just plain sorrow because of course I know and get this is probably a reality for a great deal of Americans out there. I am just puzzled to how horror fits in here. We get some peeks at horror with the talk of a "devil" roaming the unit and eating/killing people. But then we just shy away from that for pages and pages.
I really think the book could have been tightened up a bit. And not going to lie, when we get to the second act so to speak, after Pepper and his merry crew confront the devil I lost interest in the story. I tried to struggle through this and finally just finished it in one seating the other day so I can get this over and done with.
If you are going to read LaValle, I suggest you read "The Ballad of Black Tom" or "The Changeling." This book seems to be a hybrid of a lot of different genres and didn't do any of them very well IMHO. -
I'm undecided about putting this on my horror shelf. I sometimes thought that the most frightening thing about this book/story is that it was turned into a novel. Slow moving at times almost pedantic we get this story (ending up with the rat's point of view about the whole thing...no really, rats. We're talking the actual 4 legged rodent here not some monster called "a rat".) Still we get an interesting "point" to the story. It is there. Really, just keep looking.
The opening of this story and the "protagonist" tells us of a human who can only be called an "A-H" if you choose to use the vulgar term. The problem is it fits "Pepper" so well. He's big, a bully, can't control his temper. All in all he's his own worst enemy. Committed for a 72 hour observation he can't control himself. Losing his temper, resisting staff, he gives the powers that be an excuse (if that's what they were looking for) to commit him against his will.
We trudge through this story which is horrific in it's view of being held in a locked ward with nothing to do, nowhere to go, bad food and a monster of some kind that everyone knows about .
I've sort of been here before. You are supposed to get involved with the patients but by halfway through the book I still "wasn't really". The "horror" kicks in after a while, sort of but I was never involved.
So, tired of story and glad to be out of the book. Not one I like or can recommend.
Sorry if you like it, though I'm happy for you. Feel free to enjoy and recommend it, I mean that. I can see why it will be liked by some. The pacing, the subtext all will appeal to some readers. I suppose it's largely a matter of taste. -
This was my first Victor LaValle book and it will certainly not be my last.
I found LaValle to be quite cleaver and remarkably comical. At first I thought this book was going to be a horror but even though it was at times scary, I found it to be more of a modern day thriller/mystery. This book intertwines elements of madness, friendship, and courage. A story challenging readers to consider the monster within us, the "devil" inside us all.
This book was suspenseful, creative and at time bizarre. But hey, how can you write a book about a mental institution without mentioning the bizarre! -
This book is good stuff. Awesome writing style, interesting premise, love the themes he's exploring, and it's always a good thing to see mental illness explored in a book that's NOT ableist!
I'm new to this author and now I want to read everything he's done.
I guess my only complaint is that it could have been a little shorter? Nonetheless I enjoyed it immensely and it made my commute into Manhattan much more enjoyable everyday. -
Mostly while I read this, I just kept asking, "Why?"
Why does the narrator break out and speak to the reader directly every so often?
Why doesn't anyone, including Pepper, care that there's this guy in a mental facility for no apparent reason?
Why am I listening to this?
Why did it take so long to get to the title of the book?
I guess I'm assuming that since we're not seeing the story through Pepper's eyes, we are given a less-biased/not-drugged account of what's going on so I never assumed that any of these why's could be answered with delusion or medication so I had confusion, instead.
It's not that I hated this book, I didn't. I just didn't understand how this all made a story. I mean, there IS a story but none of the things I expected to encounter were there and that was both good and bad. It wasn't "Girl, Interrupted" and it wasn't like my own visits to these types of places - so not Hollywood and not boring-yet-uncomfortable. But, still - WHY is this a story? I don't know; I haven't figured it out.
There was one part, though, that I really liked, a part that leapt out of the earphones and into my brain.
So I think the message I walked away with was that most people in psych units are supposed to be there and they need their meds in order to function properly because the rest of society just isn't ready to work with them but that if someone who doesn't belong there gets in, that's ok because we're probably all in need of some mental ward time anyhow. -
3.5 Stars
This was an excellent piece of literary horror that provided social commentary on racial prejudices and mental health. While not particularly scary, this is the kind of horror that would appeal to a wider audience of readers. The characterization and writing in this novel was well done. However, the narrative was quite slow. Personally, I felt that the novel could have been shorter. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the story as much if I had read a physical copy. The audiobook version definitely enhanced my reading experience. -
Gawd damn is this book good.
I will flesh out this review, promise.
In the meantime, add this to your to read list💜
Trust me it's not to be missed. -
It’s October—time to scare the pants off ourselves!
I have been planning my creepy fall reading list for several weeks now. As soon as the daytime temperatures start flirting with the 60s (even if they boing back up like they’re attached to a bungee cord a few days later), it’s like an alarm goes off in my head. For some people, that alarm signals pumpkin spice time, but for me it means I start inhaling all the scary shit I can get my hands on.
First up: The Devil in Silver. I have wanted to read Victor LaValle for a long time now, but as someone who is A) squeamish about gore and violence, and B) liable to spiral into depression if the subject matter gets TOO dark, I couldn’t quite get up the nerve to dip my toe in the water. His most recent novel,
The Changeling, made a huge splash when it came out in June, but after reading the synopsis and trigger warning-laden reviews, I knew I couldn’t hang. But I refused to be denied entry into the Victor LaValle fan club, so I delved into his back catalog to see if there was something for a reader like me. As soon as I saw the comparisons to
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I knew The Devil in Silver was the one.
The comparisons make sense, even though LaValle’s characters themselves talk about the Kesey novel and disdain it (I’ll let you read the book to find out why). LaValle’s novel takes place in a psychiatric wing of a hospital and centers around a new admit who doesn’t fit in and stirs things up among the other patients. Pepper, in many ways the quintessential blue-collar man’s man, is brought to the hospital by cops who know he isn’t in need of mental health services, but due to some bureaucratic nonsense, it’s easier for them to drop him off there and end their long shifts rather than take him to booking. The assumption is that Pepper will be evaluated, found to be cognitively normal, and released after 72 hours, but LaValle shows that being on the ward is enough to make even a sane person crazy, whether he started that way or not.
It doesn’t bode well for Pepper’s odds of getting released that a monster stalks the ward at night. He’s seen it, and even though he doesn’t want to get too close to anyone inside—after all, he’s not one of them—he’s pretty sure some of the other patients know what the thing is. The staff, when questioned, pretend they don’t know what he’s talking about, and an entire hallway with a reinforced door at the end is off-limits to patients. Whatever’s down that hall, it isn’t friendly.
This story starts out pretty creepy with all the talk of monsters and the not-knowing what’s on the loose at night, but midway it takes a turn and becomes scary in an entirely different, more existential way. Turns out, exhausted and disillusioned medical professionals are actually a whole lot scarier than things that go bump in the night.
I’m glad I can now legitimately count myself one of LaValle’s fans.
More book recommendations by me at
www.readingwithhippos.com -
I really disliked this book. Great premise, poor execution -- by the end, I was forcing myself to pick it up and finish it. The characters are one-dimensional, the situations and setting are absurd and unrealistic, and the writing was amateurish. I'm honestly shocked this was published -- and I'm irritated that I bought this one in hardback. The author is an award winner -- hopefully his other work is much better than this, but I won't be checking it out any time soon.
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**Review coming soon!**
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Many authors love to set their novels in mental hospitals - think of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Greenberg's I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, Lehane's Shutter Island, McGrath's Asylum, and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
The reason, of course, is that the setting allows the author to explore how life inside the cloistered walls of an institution is often indistinguishable from "real" life outside. And so it is with The Devil in Silver.
Pepper (so-called because he is "spicy") is committed to New Hyde Hospital in Queens for a period of 72 hours for assaulting three undercover police officers. Since this is a book that exceeds 400 pages, we can be relatively certain that his stay will exceed the minimal time...and it does. The theme is telegraphed here by one of Pepper's new-found friends: "Everyone in New Hyde is trapped in some way. Patients and staff. You think they ever set foot in a place like this unit? Our lives are a clinical trial, Pepper. We're all being tested."
There is a special wrinkle to this novel: one of the inmates may be the devil himself. The horror element is gradually introduced and woven into the larger tale. There's just enough of the horror element to connect those who enjoy the genre (perhaps, books of Stephen King), yet it never transforms into a true horror novel because of the strong human element.
The main strength of this novel is a very engaging tone by Victor LaValle. The man definitely knows how to write and from the very first page, I wanted to read on. The dialogue is crisp, the characters are compelling, and the novel successfully bridges the gap between literary mainstream and time-honored psychological horror. Mr. LaValle convincingly weaves in important themes of the numbing and moral incertitude of our lives ("Maybe out there is a lot like in here. The United States of New Hyde"), the way we handle those who are "different" including immigrants, the distancing bureaucracies, the ability of love to thrive in the most meager environments, and how we confront the demons that live within and around us.
The weakness is a certain amount of authorial intrusion - leading the reader. Take these lines, for example: "Some might doubt the mentally ill could pull off an orderly queue. Aren't they raving lunatics? Shouldn't they be wandering off or howling at the moon? That's more dramatic, admittedly, but inaccurate." Passages like this show a certain lack of trust in the reader's ability to form his/her opinions.
With a few reservations here and there, I recommend it. Think: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest combined with The Shining, and you'll have an idea of what's in store for you. -
Any book about the iniquities of the mental-health system in the US, and how this is a microcosm of the larger society, has to contend with the legacy of Ken Kesey. One of LaValle's characters not only references One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but offers a half-baked critique of the book as not being about 'real' people. Well, would you believe that one of the inmates in LaValle's New Hyde is actually the Devil?
Neither did I. This is the weakest aspect of this novel, which could have happily done without the horror schtick. I saw a review in which The Devil In Silver is praised as a mash-up of social satire and horror. Mash-up is definitely correct, as this is a bit of a glutinous mess.
Having your main character admitted to a psychiatric ward in New York where one of the inmates is the Devil him (it?) self -- what a great set-up. But then LaValle sabotages his own grand premise by having the Devil appear as an ineffectual old man with a bison's head. In one scene he falls over and cannot get back up again. Huh?
Another curious misstep, as Pepper leads a charge of the insane and maladjusted to unearth the truth behind what New Hyde is hiding in Ward 5, is to change point of view ... to a giant rat. Called LeClerc. So much for the narrative tension and horror of the final confrontation.
The best bits of the novel are the quietly desperate chapters about the daily grind of life on your average mental ward. The characters are amazingly lifelike, and LaValle writes passionately and eloquently about their dehumanisation. Unfortunately, this is one instance where the Devil definitely should not have been left in the details. -
3,5 stars, rounded up.
I'm just going to copy-paste what I wrote for one of my updates, which is "Don't know why everyone keeps hyping up the Ballad of Black Tom and the Ballad of Black Tom only when this is far superior.". I still stand by that.
The book was pretty freakin' good. The horror was solid (though I'm fully aware that ), the characters were fantastic, the author wasn’t afraid to tackle several social justice issues (all falling under the prejudice umbrella, pretty much, I don't know if there's any point in me reciting several -isms, you get the picture). I just had a blast reading this book, that's really all I have to say. -
Victor LaValle has a real gift for describing authentic "stage business," character gestures, ticks, and body language. These aspects of his writing seem to be drawn directly, and relayed expertly, from observation. This book is frightening and sad and very funny, too. The humor works so well because it's organic to the story, the characters, the situations. I had a few minor quibbles with this book (but they are things that are like personal pet peeves more than anything), but not enough to detract from the overall impact of what the author has accomplished here. This is an excellent piece of work, something I will be recommending to folks.
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I didn’t like or dislike this really so I’m not going to rate it.
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"Literary horror" is a category I find unnecessary and a bit snotty. What is that supposed to mean? Is this somehow more "worthy" than genre fiction, something more intellectually respectable than a mere horror novel?
The novel itself is not so pretentious. It is an enjoyable, suspenseful, and occasionally touching novel about mental illness and captivity. Its metaphor is accessible and not overwrought. The setting is a hospital for the mentally ill that focuses less on treatment and more on sedating and warehousing human beings (and of course billing public agencies for their services). This is, at least, the social reality to which the inmates -- er, patients -- have become resigned. The story is told in jubilant, straightforward prose in a wry voice that occasionally prompted me to wonder who this narrator was. The default answer seems to be Victor LaValle, who interrupts the story two or three times to share real-life examples of the system's "failures" -- or are they successes? As one of the novel's unhappy characters notes: "Every system is designed to give you the results you actually get. If you understand that, you'll see that this system is working."
This novel emerges from a United States much changed since Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest appeared in 1962, ten years before Victor LaValle's birth. This is another novel in which an everyman winds up in a mental hospital. The Devil in Silver owes a debt to that novel but expresses a different kind of hope in the face of a different kind of monster, embodied here as a monster with a bison's head and sharp horns. Interestingly, these authors have had very different personal experiences of mental institutions. Victor LaValle has witnessed mental illness amid his own family, has visited them in these places and seen their treatment; in the author's note, he has very harsh words for one place in particular, but does not elaborate on what happened there. The late Ken Kesey, on the other hand, worked in one of these places as an orderly.
Its merits as a frightening horror novel may be overstated. I did not feel, with the author of one of the blurbs, that this will "scare the living ^$%* out of the reader." There is a monster roaming the hospital and terrifying the patients, yes. The true monster, we discover, is one that is highly insulated from popular revolt.
A more notable achievement is its central character, a bit of a roughneck who calls himself Pepper. Again, from the author's note: "Being a kid from Queens means I grew up with people of every color, nationality, and faith. Among those were plenty of working-class white guys. They were my friends. But when I saw guys like them in books, movies, or television, they were usually depicted as: 1) drunks, 2) abusers, or 3) drunk abusers. The guys I'd known deserved better than those portrayals. They were as capable of goodness as anyone else." He achieves this remarkably well in Pepper, especially considering the character is heavily medicated for much of the book. The guy is unsophisticated and given to solving conflicts with his fists, and is at the same time funny, affectionate, a man who can be thoughtless but who also demonstrates incomprehensible kindness. -
Pepper is a fortysomething blue collar wise guy from Queens, New York, a big man whose height and girth are exceeded only by his unfiltered mouth, naïveté, and unique ability to make every bad situation much worse. His reverse Midas touch lands him in the psychiatric unit at New Hyde Hospital, after his chivalrous attempt to protect a neighbor causes him to engage in a brawl with three men, who unbeknownst to him are undercover NYC police officers. The cops drop him off at New Hyde, where he is supposed to spend the next 72 hours in observation until his court date.
New Hyde is a financially strapped and decrepit public hospital, and the psych ward, known as Northwest, is even more dilapidated and poorly managed than the separate Med/Surg units. Pepper finds himself surrounded by a colorful group of fellow inmates, who include a benign elderly woman, who serves as his greeter and guide; his African roommate, who is obsessed with contacting any government official, including Mayor Bloomberg or President Obama, that will investigate the inhumane treatment provided to patients on the ward; and a teenage girl, whose razor wit and even sharper tongue hide her deep vulnerability and sensitivity.
Unfortunately there is also one particularly malevolent being that resides there: a hairy man-beast of superhuman strength, who the other patients refer to as 'The Devil'. This creature terrorizes the patients, who believe that he is the cause for the mysterious deaths and disappearances that plague Northwest. Pepper encounters The Devil on his first night there, and barely escapes his deadly grasp.
Pepper's narcissism and bad luck continues to plague him, as his attempts to escape and to demand his rights land him in ever deeper trouble with the medical staff and the other patients. His 72 hour stay is progressively extended, even though most believe that he doesn't belong there. Despite this, he wins the trust of several patients, who enlist him in their fight to overcome The Devil.
LaValle also describes the broken mental health system in NYC, including the notorious
death of Esmin Green at King's County Hospital in Brooklyn in 2008, the mistreatment of public citizens by the NYPD, and the sometimes tense race relations in the melting pot that is the Big Apple.
This was a delightful read, and a book which transcends easy classification: Is it a mystery? a horror story? a love story? literary fiction? or African American literature? I'd say yes to all of these descriptions. More importantly, it's a well written page turner of a novel, which I believe would be appreciated by a wide audience.
