logo
Wrong email address or username
Wrong email address or username
Incorrect verification code
The Devil in Silver - Victor LaValle
The Devil in Silver
by: (author)
3.88 120
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... show more
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?   The Devil in Silver brilliantly brings together the compelling themes that spark all of Victor LaValle’s radiant fiction: faith, race, class, madness, and our relationship with the unseen and the uncanny. More than that, it’s a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror about friendship, love, and the courage to slay our own demons.Advance praise for The Devil in Silver   “Literary horror just found a new master. Profound, and profoundly terrifying, Victor LaValle’s The Devil in Silver is a page-turning delight.”—Gary Shteyngart   “The Devil in Silver is the rare work that takes seemingly disparate parts and brings them together seamlessly into something entirely original. There is madness here, and it is infused with brilliance, and the result is a story that is as illuminating as it is entertaining.”—Mat Johnson, author of Pym
show less
Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9781400069866 (1400069866)
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Pages no: 412
Edition language: English
Bookstores:
Community Reviews
Abandoned by Booklikes
Abandoned by Booklikes rated it
3.0 Don't Think the Book Knew What It Wanted to Be
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 ...
cczarneckikernus
cczarneckikernus rated it
4.0 The Devil in Silver
interesting point of view of man (perhaps wrongfully) involuntarily committed to a psych ward 3 1/2 *
makinghismark
makinghismark rated it
Pepper is brought to the New Hyde mental institution, because he got into a fight with the police. He believes that the police have dropped him there, rather than do all the paperwork it would take to arrest him. He's sure that he'll be out after the weekend, but many weeks later he finds himself j...
EricaO
EricaO rated it
2.0 The Devil in Silver
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 t...
Gregor Xane
Gregor Xane rated it
5.0 The Devil in Silver: A Novel
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 becaus...
Other editions (8)
Books by Victor LaValle
On shelves
Share this Book
Need help?