The Devil in Silver

A man called “Pepper,” who may or may not suffer from mental illness, ends up in a locked mental ward in Queens, New York, where the entire novel takes place.

A beast, who the patients believe is the devil, comes out at night, assaulting and sometimes killing patients. Patient deaths are chalked up to suicide. The engaging, quirky characters—drugged to the gills while warehoused and essentially untreated in a public hospital—share the defining feature of being low-income and unprotected from both the supernatural and human forces that would destroy them. They must take matters into their own hands to protect… show more.

I believe there are two types of horror stories, one in which a character enters the world of the horror, and the other where the horror comes to visit. LaValle’s book is definitely an example of the former, with the title having great importance in the emerging theme of the story. Just like his excellent novella The Ballad of Black Tom, this book showcases LaValle’s mastery of authenticity and believability in characterization. I love the way LaValle mixes social commentary (the truth about poverty and institutionalization) and monster movie tropes to conjure up something surprising.