I enjoyed Lavalle’s earlier novel, Big Machine, when I read it several years ago. LaValle takes his sweet time building to a climax that’s utterly predictable and underwhelming-and while he’s at it he drags the plot in too many directions. The characters are well-developed (albeit cliche), likable and worthy of our sympathy. But ultimately it’s just not compelling enough.
It’s an interesting concept, and the plot moves along at a swift pace with some interesting commentary about mental illness and the inhumanity with which our society approaches it. In spite of himself, Pepper befriends some of the other patients at New Hyde, and together they plot to take down the Devil once and for all. Is it the Devil-as they’ve all come to believe-or is it something else? A manifestation of their own inner demons? A sinister conspiracy to produce dead bodies? There’s something lurking in the shadows of New Hyde: a creature with the body of an old man and the head of a beast, and it’s slowly killing the patients who live there. But as he soon finds out, convincing those around him that he isn’t crazy is the least of his problems. When Pepper is admitted to the New Hyde mental hospital in Queens, New York, he’s knows he doesn’t belong there.
What I got was a fairly unoriginal story about a mental institution, relying on common-and at times, frankly offensive-tropes and stereotypes. I think I came into this book expecting something different: I wanted something scarier, something more surreal and thought-provoking.
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