A review by readingwithhippos
The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle
4.0
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, [b:The Changeling|31147267|The Changeling|Victor LaValle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1492886432s/31147267.jpg|51777682], 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 [b:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest|332613|One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest|Ken Kesey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1173825614s/332613.jpg|2100252], 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 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, [b:The Changeling|31147267|The Changeling|Victor LaValle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1492886432s/31147267.jpg|51777682], 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 [b:One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest|332613|One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest|Ken Kesey|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1173825614s/332613.jpg|2100252], 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