The Devil in Silver by Victor Lavalle

January 26, 2024 10:46 PM

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

Pepper is the surprised inmate of a mental institution in Queens, New York. After being put on a psychiatric hold because 3 cops didn't want the bother of booking him, Pepper encounters a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison that 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.

posted by miss-lapin (1 comment total)

I read this a couple of years ago--much of the horror derives from the mundane practices of the institution itself, such as the constant drugging of the patients into half-awake compliance. The Minotauresque "devil" is not the focus (although how the residents talk about/try to deal with him is). If you go into it after reading Lavalle's other work, like The Ballad of Black Tom, there may be a bit of whiplash.
posted by thomas j wise at 12:52 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]