The Devil in Silver - (The Lavalle Quartet) by Victor Lavalle (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

New Hyde Hospital's psychiatric ward has a new resident. It also has a very, very old one.

"A dizzying high-wire act."--The Washington Post
"Fantastical, hellish, and hilarious."--Los Angeles Times
"By turns horrifying, suspenseful, and comic."--The Boston Globe

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly

Pepper is the surprised inmate of a mental institution in Queens, New York. In the darkness of his room, on his first night, a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It's no delusion: The other patients confirm that a devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to kill the monster that's stalking them. But can the Devil die?

The Devil in Silver is a thrillingly suspenseful literary work about friendship, love, and the courage to slay our own demons.

Review Quotes

"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

About the Author

Victor LaValle is the award-winning author of two previous novels, The Ecstatic and Big Machine, and a collection of short stories, Slapboxing with Jesus. Big Machine was the winner of an American Book Award and the Shirley Jackson Award in 2010, and was selected as one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly. He teaches writing at Columbia University and lives in New York.