Devil House by John Darnielle

From New York Times bestselling author and Mountain Goats’ singer/songwriter John Darnielle—“a master at building suspense” (Los Angeles Times)—comes an epic, gripping novel about murder, truth, artistic obsession, and the dangers of storytelling in Devil House. Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him. Now, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success—and movie adaptation—to his name, along with a series of subsequent lesser efforts that have paid the bills but not much more. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: To move into the house—what the locals call “The Devil House”—in which a briefly notorious pair of murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected 1980s teens. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected—back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is. John Darnielle has long been known to millions of Mountain Goats fans as a storyteller of uncanny sensitivity and mythic power. In Universal Harvester and Wolf in White Van before it, he has proven himself a novelist of the highest order. With Devil House, Darnielle rises above with a novel that blurs the line between fact and fiction, that combines daring formal experimentation with a gripping tale of crime, writing, memory, and artistic obsession.

This book was maybe maybe 1.5 stars. I am too annoyed to round up. If you picked up this book because it has a neat cover, run away. Run away! The entire meat of the review will be spoilered because I am too annoyed too pussy foot and avoid spoilers.
I picked up this book because a) The cover was very cool. b) I wanted to read something different from what I read recently. C) I liked the idea of a fictional true crime writer. For various reasons I no longer consume most true crime. Boy howdy do I have some regrets. I started to get annoyed at about the 50% point but I was convinced the book would get good again like towards the beginning. I was WRONG.Weird things this book did in no particular order:Described scenes in fake medieval because of one metaphor about a knight protecting his castle.Had entire knight and castle portion in another font with no explanation. From what I can tell in other reviews no one else knows why this section was included eitherLied about the fake true crime, *inconsistently*Had the big reveal about the narrator having a screw loose in the last chapter with very little lead up.Included random sections from the other fake true crime book the MC wrote.Gave an entire summary of a letter a victims mother wrote complete with the MC's responses.Implied to MC is *so conflicted* they aren't sure if they can publish their terrible book. This had some lead up but very boring pay off. Why does he care so much about random homeless men?? I need answers this book has denied me.Seriously dude, do you need an intervention??? Did your writers group vote you off the island??

A terrifying, ergodic meditation on what it means to write—and consume—true crime.

This is not a Horror book...at all!

This novel evaded my expectations all the way through until the last few pages. The main character is a writer of true crime books who moves into a building where a grisly double murder occurred in the 1980's, with the intent to investigate and write his next book about what really happened there. We learn that his first book, about a woman who killed her teenage attackers and inexplicably dismembered them and tried to throw their bodies in the ocean, was successful enough to be made into a movie. There is enough gruesome detail and enough inhabiting the lives of the people involved in these murders to be creepy, more than a little disturbing, but this book is definitely not horror. Nor is it exactly a mystery. True, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the Devil House murders and certainly the character of Gage Chandler wants to get at the truth, but it's not clear that the story is going to deliver on that.

Wherever it was going, I was willing to follow, though, even through some abrupt changes of perspective and style. This was a highly readable book. It had an aura of 1970's-‘80's nostalgia that drew me in, reminding me of the so-called “Satanic Panic” of my adolescence. There were some portrayals of adolescent and teenage friendship that were deep, nuanced, and very much of the time period that made the story irresistible to me. The end was not at all what I expected, but once I read it I could look back and see how the roots of the ending went far back into the book. It did not just pop out of nowhere.