The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
320 pages, Hardcover
Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Horror (2022)
This is a book I was massively overdue to read and I don’t know what took so long. I met Gabino briefly at a Con, I am not even sure which one, world Horror, BizarroCon…honestly not sure. I know him mostly as a positive force for years on Twitter, offering writing advice and being very posi all the time. So I admit I have always been rooting for this book and his success. According to good reads over 600 people are reading it! That is amazing. I have seen it suggested on the NPR website etc.
The direct comparisons in the book world are easy. This fits into the same crime noir that S.A. Cosby’s genius Blacktop Wasteland fits. Like that novel, TDTYH forces the reader into an emotionally heavy crime tale that even the most straight-laced of readers can understand. Comparisons to Breaking Bad are lazy two-dimensional takes.
This is the story of Mario a young father who ends up with a sick and dying daughter, his plans for a straight life and family are destroyed. A typical book would have Mario risking everything to save his daughter, but not this book the depths are so much deeper. He needs money and his ability to bury his feelings cold-bloodedly kill a man sets off a series of events that drive this narrative. Hope wouldn't make sense the early moments of this book.
Mario, our point-of-view character is no Walter White, that show was a very different journey. Yes, we have the desert, a father, and a crime story. This story starts in a crushing, heartbreaking fashion, it softens up the reader before pushing us into a violent and hardcore direction. You may think you are prepared but there was a genuine WTF’s for this lifelong reader of the dark. The Devil Takes You Home is a novel reviewers struggle to not spoil as Iglesias plants his feet in the noir but takes massive swings in the third act I didn’t see coming. If you want to preserve that surprise then I suggest you take my word before I get into spoilers.
I read this book based on the strength of the Author, and never once read the insert. Glad I didn’t as this tonal shift is right there in some of the comparisons. I get it, I really do - but it would have soured the best a reveal a little OK
The first act does a fantastic job stripping away any fucks for Mario to give. “Shaken I walked back to the sofa and sat down. I hated God, but I needed him. I resented my mom for passing on her stupid devotion to me. Sometimes, I think faith is like a disease in our genes, something we can’t despite knowing we should.”
The typical "Save the cat" formula would have Mario needing to have the money to save his daughter Anita. It is a little thing but the early heartbreak and despair set the novel and Mario's role in it apart from other stories. This darkness gives the events a serrated edge. This doesn't just serve the characters.
The Devil Takes You Home is Bario-noir, southern noir, and a road trip story. The cruelty of the early chapters also sets the stage for frank talk. Set on both sides of the Texas/ Mexico border the story is political, and opinionated. Thin-skinned readers will be turned off by the heartbreak at the beginning and that might be for the better because the honest reflections on racism and classism will be too much for them.
“What people with money don’t understand is that most poor people’s problems can be solved with money. There are problems that won’t go away no matter how many bills you throw at them, but for people like me, for folks whose nightmares have names like hunger and eviction, money is a wonderful thing that can make tribulations disappear in a matter of seconds.”
I made the mistake of reading angry reviews that felt attacked by this novel. It is a hilariously stupid position. What are you afraid of? Personally, I love when a book makes morons angry, that is a sign the author is challenging mainstream thought. Gabino Iglesias has his priorities straight, first and foremost he is telling a story but like all the best writers he is doing so with a voice. He is commenting on Texas, politics, poverty, racism, crime, and lots more. Take this chapter opener and what it says about Texas...
“The connective tissue between large Texas cities is brown nothingness. Buildings sprout from the flat ground in the distance when you get close enough to a city, their tallest structures reaching up to the sky like the blocky dark fingers of some buried giant from an alien race, but before you get there, the only thing around you is dirt, a few weathered shrubs, and an endless blue sky that sometimes makes you think it’s close enough to shatter if you throw a big rock at it. It’s like whichever deity was in charge of the terrain just gave up and copied and pasted the same mile over and over again all the way along I-10.”
This is familiar to anyone who has driven through Texas. It makes Texas sound unappealing to me but I know it, I recognize it. I think people who get mad at this novel and talk of white shame are embarrassed to see themselves in the description.
The other element that makes The Devil Takes You Home a superior work of noir is the characters. the thin line between cartoon and meaningful villains is a tough needle that Iglesias threads. The coolest thing for me however was the massive tonal shift I hinted at before. For two chapters the novel goes supernatural, well maybe it does? The moments of horror in the tunnels under the border both seem impossible and inevitable. This is a big swing to take so late in a novel that has not established that tone at any point before.
Gabino Iglesias has a passion for writers, and books and he supports the book-a-sphere for that reason, I really WANTED to like this book. Lucky for me I loved it. After massive hype, this book lived up to every word of it. Even the haters that fear what it has to say, to me that makes the book even better.
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