The Devil in Silver

by Victor LaValle Narrated by Victor LaValle

Overview

Pepper is a rambunctious big man, 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. On his first night, he's visited by a terrifying creature 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; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl. 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?

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Audio

In this inspired and haunting thriller from Victor LaValle, a monstrous devil is on the loose in a rundown, but still functioning, mental hospital in Queens, N.Y. And while the inmates have seen the creature, the hospital staff is working hard to keep it hidden away. But when the sun goes down, there’s no telling what horrors will be unleashed. Soon a diverse group of inmates is forced to band together and ward off the dangerous beast. As a narrator, LaValle turns in a surprisingly layered performance that is as wonderfully creepy as his novel. With the thrills coming fast and often, LaValle’s reading easily lures listeners into the story. Additionally, LaValle lends his characters original voices that are rarely over-the-top or stereotypical. A Random/Spiegel & Grau hardcover. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Reviewed by Benjamin Percy. New Hyde hospital—a cash-strapped mental institution in Queens—is the setting of Victor LaValle’s excellent third novel. Think One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets Dante’s Inferno. LaValle anticipates the inevitable comparison to Kesey and tips his hat early on, when a patient says that though Kesey’s novel takes place in a mental hospital, “it isn’t about mentally ill people.” In the same manner, LaValle makes it unclear who is crazy and who isn’t; the overlapping realities of the doctors, nurses, and patients really aren’t so different. The omniscient narrator chases many perspectives through the fluorescent-lit corridors of New Hyde—even a rat’s—but the central character is Pepper, a big-shouldered, working-class troublemaker who ends up institutionalized simply because it means less paperwork for the police. Pepper is led to believe he will face a judge after 72 hours, but bad luck and bad decisions keep him at New Hyde—always medicated, sometimes restrained to his bed so long the small of his back “stopped feeling like a curled fist a day ago and now was just a pocket of cold fire burning through his waist.” And you never want to end up restrained at New Hyde. Because the Devil is on the prowl. He is housed—or so the patients believe—behind a silver door at the end of an empty hallway. At night he visits his neighbors. His heels clop “like horseshoes on cobblestones.” He has the body of a frail old man, but the head of a bison, with a “deep, wet pit” of a mouth and “dead white eyes.” Pepper’s roommate—a malt ball-headed man named Coffee who spends most of his time trying to phone the president—believes, “The food makes us fat. The drugs make us slow. We’re cattle. Food. For it.” The novel is genuinely unsettling—as the devil lowers himself from the ceiling, as the doctors and nurses abuse the patients, as a woman commits suicide by swallowing a bed sheet so deeply that its tip is stained yellow with bile—but it is also very funny. LaValle has a wicked sense of humor, and the gags often come as a relief, such as when an institutionalized teenage girl in baby-blue Nikes takes down a big man with her “crazy strength” or a monstrous rat crashes through a ceiling tile, snatches a box of Cocoa Puffs, and scampers through a gauntlet of nurses stomping their feet and swinging brooms. In a novel suffused with the tragic and sinister, humor is necessary, modulating emotion, keeping us off guard. But on occasion, LaValle gets too silly and cute. The hospital administration, always cutting corners, repurposes the building “like a motherfucker.” And as Pepper sneaks his lover into his room, the narrator says, “ladies and gentlemen, despite the perceived differences between them and you, the mentally ill like jooking, too!” Moments like these make the tone feel unstable, and the moments of genuine terror harder to take seriously. But these are small gripes. The novel, expertly written, will leave you wondering about its many memorable characters and lingering over questions about fear, horror, madness, suffering, friendship, and love. Benjamin Percy is the author of the novels Red Moon (forthcoming from Grand Central) and The Wilding, as well as two books of short stories. His honors include the Whiting Writers’ Award, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics.

From the Publisher

A fearless exploration of America’s heart of darkness . . . a dizzying high-wire act.”—The Washington Post

“LaValle never writes the same book and his recent is a stunner. . . . Fantastical, hellish and hilarious.”—Los Angeles Times

“It’s simply too bighearted, too gentle, too kind, too culturally observant and too idiosyncratic to squash into the small cupboard of any one genre, or even two.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Embeds a sophisticated critique of contemporary America’s inhumane treatment of madness in a fast-paced story that is by turns horrifying, suspenseful, and comic.”—The Boston Globe

“LaValle uses the thrills of horror to draw attention to timely matters. And he does so without sucking the joy out of the genre. . . . A striking and original American novelist.”—The New Republic

Library Journal

That old man with a bison's head, roaming the mental ward each night at New Hyde Hospital? It's the devil. To defeat him, newcomer Skinny Ray joins forces with three other patients. LaValle's last novel, Big Machine, won the Shirley Jackson, Earnest Gaines, and American Book awards and got best book nods from at least a half-dozen venues. I expect a lot from this book, and I don't even read horror.

Kirkus Reviews

A diffuse novel reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--but then, what novel set in a mental ward does not remind one of Randle McMurphy and Company? Pepper is a huge man who gets put in New Hyde Hospital in Queens for assaulting three undercover police officers he's dubbed Huey, Dewey and Louie. Although he was originally supposed to stay no more than 72 hours, Pepper winds up getting put on a potent collection of psycho-sedative drugs and "wakes up" almost a month later, wondering what he's doing there. The ward has the usual collection of oddities, misfits and eccentrics, and Pepper fairly quickly adapts to his new situation, perhaps a sign that life outside the walls is close to indistinguishable from life within. One new wrinkle in this relatively predictable scheme of things is that the devil--yes, Satan himself--seems to occasionally run loose at night, wreaking havoc on some of the inmates. Meanwhile, Pepper starts to adjust to life on the inside, attending book-group sessions, where he becomes enamored with the letters of Vincent van Gogh, and experiencing the irrational vagaries of his fellow inmates. He also begins a sexual relationship with Sue (or Xiu), who's scheduled to be deported to China in a week, so Pepper takes upon himself the task of rescuing her from this fate. Seeing himself as a savior allows Dr. Anand, the head psychiatrist, the luxury of diagnosing Pepper as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder--and you know things have gotten out of hand when a psychiatrist tells a group of inmates, "You are terrible people...Sometimes I want to kill you." A story whose idea is much more engaging than the reading experience itself.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175639071
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	08/21/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

1

They brought the big man in on a winter night when the moon looked as hazy as the heart of an ice cube. It took three cops to wrestle and handcuff him. They threw him in their undercover cruiser and drove him to the New Hyde mental hospital. This was a mistake. They shouldn't have brought him there. But that wasn't going to save him.

When they reached the hospital, everyone got out. The big man refused to walk. The three cops mobbed around him, trying to intimidate, but to the big man they just looked like Donald Duck's nephews: Huey, Dewey, and Louie. A bunch of cartoons. It didn't help that they were dressed in street clothes instead of blue uniforms.

Dewey and Louie walked behind the big man and Huey stayed up front. The big man's hands were cuffed behind his back. Dewey and Louie pushed him like tugboats guiding a barge, one good shove and he floated toward the double doors of the building. The lobby was so empty, so quiet, that their footsteps echoed.

New Hyde looked like a low-rent motel. Bland floral-print cushions on the couches and chairs, the walls a lackluster lavender. There were no patients waiting around, no staff members on hand, not even an information desk. But Huey, the lead cop, knew where he was going. The big man frowned at the décor and the empty seats. He'd thought they were taking him to a lockup. What the hell kind of place was this? He got so confused, his feet stopped moving, so Dewey and Louie gave him another shove.

They reached the far end of the lobby and found a hallway. The cops turned right but the big man went left. It might've looked like an escape attempt except that the big man stopped himself after two paces. So confused he actually turned back to look for them. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were watching him now, to see what he would do. They were relaxed because they knew he could do nothing.

Huey raised his right hand. He wore a chunky silver diver's watch that looked expensive even under the hospital's terrible fluorescent lights. He beckoned and the big man stepped closer to them. It was quiet enough that the cops could hear him lick his dry lips.

Now this guy was big but let's put it in perspective. He wasn't Greek mythology-sized; wasn't tossing boulders at passing ships. He wasn't even Green Mile-sized; one of those human-giant types. He stood six foot three and weighed two hundred seventy-one pounds, and if that doesn't sound big to you, then you must be a professional wrestler. The dude was big but still recognizably human. Beatable. Three smaller men, like these cops, could take him down together. Just to get that straight.

The big man returned to his captors, without a word, and once again they all moved in the same direction.

The hallway was clear and empty, just lavender walls boxing in a thin runway of industrial carpet. But the big man could see that the runway ended at a big old door, heavy like you'd find on a bank vault. Unmovable. This was no Motel Six. His footsteps faltered. But this time the cops weren't going to let him wander off. Dewey yanked that big boy backward, by the handcuffs. His shoulders popped in their sockets and his face went hot with pain.

"Now he's scared," the lead cop said.

They reached the door. A small white button sat in the wall. Huey pressed it and kept his finger on the button. The buzzer played on the other side of the door and sounded like a duck's quack, as if Huey was throwing his cartoon voice.

The secure door featured a window the size of a cereal box. With his finger still steady on the buzzer, Huey peeked through it.

"Just break the glass," Dewey said.

He seemed to be joking, but he hadn't smiled.

Huey clonked the sturdy silver face of his diver's watch against the window. "You couldn't shatter this shit with a bullet."

The big man opened his mouth. He had plans to speak but found no words. He couldn't stop staring at that door. Not wood, not faux wood, f***ing iron. Maybe. The damn thing had rivets in it, like it had been torn off a battleship. Bombproof; fireproof; probably airtight, too.

He finally found the words. "This place is locked up tighter than your Uncle Scrooge's vault."

Huey turned away from the door. His eyes brightened with joyful cruelty. "You think these jokes are going to save you, but they're only making things worse."

Louie said, "He's just trying to get one of us to hit him. So he'll have a lawsuit."

Dewey said, "We didn't hit him before, why would we start now?"

Huey said, "You're applying logic to a man who's not thinking logically."

"What the hell does that mean?" the big man asked.

"We think you might be a danger to yourself because of your mental condition," Louie added sarcastically.

The big man's body went rigid. "What mental condition?"

Dewey said, "You attacked three officers of the law."

"How was I supposed to know you were cops?!"

To be fair, the big man had a point. The three men wore plain clothes. Their shields, hanging around their necks on silver chains, were tucked under their different colored sweatshirts. But who cared? Here was one rule you could count on: You were never allowed to punch a cop. So forget about punching two of them, repeatedly, and trying hard to connect with the third. It didn't matter if they were in uniform, wearing plain clothes, or rocking a pair of pajamas.

But before he could get into a debate about the finer points of an entrapment defense, an eye appeared on the other side of the unbreakable window.

Well, a head at least, with a mess of grayish white hair, but the only part they could make out clearly was that eye. The outer ring of the pupil was blue but closer to the iris the color turned a light gray. Cataracts. The other eye was shut because the person squinted. Man or woman? Hard to say, the face was smooshed so tight against the pane. The clouded pupil swam left then right, as alien as a single-cell organism caught under the objective lens of a microscope. It surveyed the big man, and the three cops. It blinked.

The big man frowned at the person in the window. Dewey and Louie unconsciously stepped backward. Only Huey, still pressing the white button, didn't seem startled by the watchful eye. He smiled at the big man, more broadly than he had all night. Relishing what he would say next: "Welcome to New Hyde." He pointed to a plaque embedded in the wall right above the door: NEW HYDE HOSPITAL. FOUNDED IN 1953.

Dewey said, "When can we leave?"

Just then the eye seemed to slip away from the window and another face replaced it. This new person stood farther from the glass so they could make out more of him. A man. Brown-skinned. With puffy cheeks, a soft chin, and a nose as round as an old lightbulb. He wore glasses. A bushy mustache. And a scowl.

They could see his chest, the tie and jacket he wore. An ID card, sheathed in plastic, hung around his neck on a plastic cord.

The big man said, "He wears his ID on the outside, see? That's how people know what his job is."

The three cops sighed with exhaustion. Nine-twenty at night and all three were tired. They just had to hand the big man off and file their reports, then each could finally go home. (To their mother, Della Duck?)

The brown man looked out at Huey, and his gaze followed the cop's arm down as far as it could go, toward that finger, still mashing the white buzzer. The brown man then stared up at Huey again and brought one finger to his lips in a shushing motion. Huey pulled his hand away so quickly, you would've thought the buzzer had just burnt him.

The bolt lock in the door turned, clacking like the opening of a manual cash register's drawer. Then the door opened with surprising ease for its apparent weight. The doorway exhaled a stale, musty smell.

They could now see the brown man fully. His big round face fused right onto his round body. Imagine a wine cask, upright, wearing glasses. Not tall and not fat, just one solid oval.

And yet he must be someone with authority, if he had the keys to open this mighty door. Which was good enough for the big man, who said, "I'm innocent."

The brown man looked up at the big man. "I'm not a judge," he said. "I'm a doctor."

The doctor narrowed his eyes at Huey, who suddenly seemed bashful.

The doctor said, "I didn't expect to be seeing you again."

Huey nodded, looking away from the doctor. But then he seemed to feel the gaze of his partners, and he snapped out of his shame.

"This is legit. He jumped two of my guys."

The big man appealed to the doctor. "I thought they were meatheads, not cops."

The doctor looked at the two cops on either side of the big man. He smiled, which made his bushy mustache rise slightly like a caterpillar on the move. He stepped aside and invited them in. "My team is waiting down the hall," he said, locking the door behind them. "Second room."

The cops led the big man forward. Dewey and Louie holding his arms tighter than before. They didn't like the meathead line. Huey, with the watch, rested one hand on the big man's shoulder and together the quartet followed the doctor.

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