Synopsis:
From Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Locus award-nominated author, Gabino Iglesias, comes The Devil Takes You Home, a genre-defying thriller about a father desperate to salvage what’s left of his family, even if it means a descent into violence–both supernatural and of our own terrifying world.
Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.
The Devil Takes You Home is a panoramic odyssey for fans of S.A. Cosby’s southern noir, Blacktop Wasteland, by way of the boundary-defying storytelling of Stephen Graham Jones and Sylvia Moreno-Garcia.
Edition:
Hardcover
Click here for other books I’ve reviewed by this author.
My Thoughts:
Gabino Iglesias knows how to write a deeply affecting story. He proved that with Zero Saints, and again in Coyote Songs. And he doesn’t pull any punches in The Devil Takes You Home. He presents brutality in a way that you just need to experience for yourself.
The Devil Takes You Home covers a lot of deeply affecting story. Not just Mario’s family’s dissolution in the wake of his daughter’s illness, but also the compounding trauma of the incredible amount of medical debt they incur trying to keep the toddler alive against all odds. America is a deeply fucked up place when it comes to things like healthcare (or any social/keeping people alive programs, really). I think this book captures that in a way you will feel down to your core.
“The thing about humanity is that it’s always worse than the worst you can imagine.”
The desperation Mario feels to first hold his family together, and later to try to recover what he has lost absolutely bleeds through the pages. He is the ultimate anti-hero – like Frank Castle, but not yet co-opted by cops that are really good at missing the entire fucking point. I mean, you just feel for him. It makes understanding the extremely questionable, dangerous, fucked up road he decides to travel a little bit easier.
Iglesias has such a talent for making a character incredibly believable. He does this partially, I think, through persisting in having his characters think/speak between Spanish and English. I know he has caught some shit for that, but I think it’s wonderful. First of all, y’all motherfuckers need some culture – clearly. But second of all, if you’ve ever interacted with a bilingual person in your whole ass life (you have, right? How could you not have?), you probably know that this is a fairly common occurrence. But I digress, as usual.
So, he takes these very believable characters and slams them into these semi-fantastical situations. No, that’s not quite right – they’re not really fantastical. They’re more hyper-violently realistic, but with elements of the supernatural or spiritual creeping in around the edges, and eventually crashing right into the middle of the thing. In this case, it manifests as a drug cartel with some very scary tools in their arsenal.
Rating:
I love the social commentary within ultra-violent noir thing Gabino Iglesias has got going on. I want to read everything he ever writes. There’s something beautiful about the tiny sparks of hope all his characters tend to carry with them through some of the worst things this world (or the spiritual one) have to offer. I just want it all in my eyeballs.
The Devil Takes You Home By Gabino Iglesias Mulholland Books ISBN: 9780316426916 Published: August 2, 2022 Hardcover, Paperback, Audio, E-book 320 Pages
This has been sitting in my TBR stack. I need to get to it ASAP! Great review!!