Review: "The Devil in Silver" by Victor LaValle

With his last three novels, American writer Victor LaValle has crafted an astounding trilogy of literary genre novels that are among the best I have come across in years. With ease and buckets of skill, his last three novels present situations, characters and mood that not only supply a good deal of suspense, intrigue and of course horror, but he uses these tropes in ways that brilliantly convey themes and ideas that are profound and imaginative. He did it first with his second novel, Big Machine and with his most recent novel The Changeling, but sandwiched in between those two books is the novel I just finished The Devil in Silver, the one that fits most comfortably in the category of “literary horror”, a genre that relies on mood and atmosphere rather than elaborate violence (a bit pretentious, but it fits this very unpretentious book). The book sets up a scary and frightening scenario and within that framework is able to tell a story about mental illness and how we treat those who suffer from such an ailment, the way we blame our problems on others, and just maybe the ways that might free us from the prions we create for ourselves. Think of something like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with a rampaging half-man half-bison being a bigger threat than Nurse Ratched. It begins a bit differently than the other two novels it rest between, as in there is very little backstory given. The first we see of Pepper is his arrest and, due to bureaucratic laziness, he is brought to New Hyde Hospital’s psych ward. He accepts this strange predicament he finds himself in rather well (which makes me think the events that brought him to the ward, as vague as they are, might not be all that true), and finds four friends as he tried to get himself out. But on his first full night, a creature hops down from one of the tiles in his room and almost kills him, only to be taken away by the hospital’s staff. The bulk of the book concerns his and three other patient’s search for what this monster is and how they can escape its wrath and the wrath of the ward itself. This is a very rich book with each of the four leads being well developed, my favorite being the tragic Coffee, Pepper’s roommate, an immigrant from Uganda whose calls on the ward’s payphone drain Pepper’s savings but also hide facts about Coffee that lead to the realization that he might actually belong where he is. And like all of LaValle’s novels, it has a beating heart among the grotesque happenings, exemplified by Loochie, a young girl who has spent most of her teenage life in the care of psych wards like New Hyde. It all adds up to a stunning mixture of disturbing realizations and sudden violence but also a chance for hope for those brave enough to face their own devils. This is a fun and enlightening book from an author who’s slowly becoming one of my new favorites.

Rating: 5/5