[Book Review] Devil House (2022)

Books that you expect will scare you in one way but ultimately end up scaring you in a completely different way are often the most satisfying – and terrifying. John Darnielle's third novel, Devil House, fits into this category perfectly. To indie music fans, Darnielle is known as the singer-songwriter behind The Mountain Goats. His gift for writing has led to a trio of extremely well-written, thoughtful novels – not to mention a nomination for the National Book Award for Fiction. 

At first, the story of Devil House seems relatively simple. The perfectly named Gage Chandler is a true crime writer. When his editor suggests that Chandler buy and move into a house where a gruesome double murder took place, he's game. The house is outside San Francisco in Milpitas, a city that was briefly infamous for a terrible reason: the ultimate disaffected teen movie River's Edge (1986) was based on a murder that took place there. The murder Gage is researching in the fictional world of Devil House, however, was never solved. 

As Gage acclimates to Milpitas, he becomes more and more committed to recreating the scene of the crime in his new home. The house was actually an adult video store at the time of the crime; the space had known many lives, and when Gage moves in, it seems like it won't be long before the entire structure is demolished. (It's interesting to note that Darnielle's second novel, Universal Harvester, also involves a video store, during the days of VHS tapes. Many fans of horror have fond memories of video stores growing up, and the magical realm of these stores is evoked in both these novels.)

Gage has reached a time in his career when he's wrestling with the ethics of writing true crime. He's quick to point out, "I try to honor the dead in my books. It's one of the things, I hope, that sets me apart a little from my partners in true crime." But he recognizes that he's made a living out of the worst day of other people's lives. The release of Devil House at this moment in history seems fitting. At the same time that the true crime genre is growing more popular (and strangely, more socially acceptable), one must wonder if consuming these stories does anyone any good. This is one of the questions at the heart of the novel. 

The novel also asks how we can tell what the truth really is, especially when it comes to true crime and the myths that grow around the most haunting cases. As Gage tells the reader, "There's a considerable distance between the things we're called to bear witness to and the things we'd prefer to see." Not every crime is easy to explain; not every criminal is "bad," and not every victim is "good." Throughout the story, Gage returns to an older case he wrote about, involving two teenagers who break into their teacher's home. In order to defend herself, the teacher stabs them to death with an oyster shucking knife. The myth of the case gradually overtakes the facts of the crime, and Gage gives the myth a name when he calls his true crime book about the murders The White Witch of Morro Bay. It's easy for local kids to pass around this legend, but the truth of what led the teacher and her pupils to their devastating ends is much more complex. 

There are other more insidious horrors seeping through the pages of Devil House. In Darnielle's story (or stories – the novel sprawls in several mind-bending directions and eventually comes to an unforgettable conclusion), there are only gray areas. It's an idea Gage seems aware of at the beginning of his journey, but he seems to only fully absorb it after spending years investigating the double murder, living at the crime scene and having a visitor or two from his own past resurface in his life again. Reading Devil House is like putting on 3D glasses after living in a 2D world; it doesn't answer many questions, but it certainly brings up enough to haunt readers for a long time after Gage's story comes to an end

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