Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle

Published by Spiegel & Grau on July 23, 2012

Consider, if you will, Lucretia Gardner. (I begin with these words because I was hearing Rod Serling's narrative voice while I read this novella.) Lucretia lives in Queens. She just turned twelve. She wants to spend time with her best (and only) friend, Sunny, a girl who is dying of cancer. Apartment 6D (according to Lucretia's older brother) is occupied by the remnants of a deformed and rotting family of crack-addicted child snatchers called the Kroons. Are the Kroons the invention of an older brother who wants to scare his sister, or do they exist? Lucretia learns the answer to that question when her mother and brother leave her alone to spend some time with Sunny.

Victor LaValle writes twisted, nontraditional versions of horror stories. His monsters often behave in surprisingly human ways. Despite the monstrous appearance of the Kroons, there's a sweetness to the story and a large dose of gentle humor (including the suggestion that Shea Stadium is actually Heaven). This might be the only story you'll read in which children smoking cigarettes is a good thing.

As LaValle demonstrated in The Devil in Silver, true horror lies not in the supernatural but in the tangible world. In Lucretia and the Kroons -- sort of a longish short story -- it is the horror of childhood cancer, of saying goodbye to a friend who will never grow up. While LaValle achieved a greater degree of poignancy in The Devil in Silver, this story offers another fine balance of creepiness and honest emotion, showcased by characters who are original and sympathetic.

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The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle

Published by Spiegel & Grau on August 21, 2012

A large man who calls himself Pepper is detained for 72 hours of observation in a psychiatric hospital after a run-in with a trio of cops who are too lazy to arrest him. Drugged into a zombie-like state by psychotropic medications, Pepper is menaced by some sort of creature. Is it real or a construct of his addled brain? Is it the Devil or is there a logical explanation for the creature's presence?

As the days go by, the hospital turns out to be a lot like Hotel California: you can check out, but you can never leave. When patients start to check out -- killed by the Devil? -- Pepper decides to investigate. Whatever the thing might be, it lives behind a silver door and staff members seem to be protecting it.

The Devil in Silver is an unconventional horror story. Victor LaValle's accurate rendering of a psychiatric ward is enough to provoke shudders -- more so, in fact, than the resident monster. The novel's strength lies in its characterization of Pepper and the other patients. Their antics provide a large dose of comedy to offset the horror. The sheer loopiness of the story is, in fact, what sustained my interest. This isn't the most politically correct novel you'll ever read, but it's often quite funny.

The best horror stories persuade the reader that the nightmare is real. The Devil in Silver is just too goofy to be frightening, but again, this isn't a conventional horror story. Instead, LaValle seems to suggest that true horror is found in the abuse of power: by trigger-happy police officers, by hospital administrators who place profit ahead of treatment, by clinicians who overmedicate patients because a docile patient population is less work. Some chapters seem like an homage to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to which LaValle makes occasional reference, but The Devil in Silver moves in a much different direction than Ken Kesey's classic.

While The Devil in Silver is entertaining, it does have faults. The narration calls attention to itself with a flippant attitude and it occasionally speaks directly to the reader (with phrases like "you won't be too surprised to learn"). The narrative voice is distracting; it frequently took me out of the story. A long section devoted to the history of a rat named LeClair is an amusing but unnecessary digression. A chapter that doesn't work very well recounts the story of Vincent Van Gough to make a veiled point about the lack of attention given to institutionalized patients in contemporary America. The ending is a bit of a letdown.

Faults notwithstanding, The Devil in Silver works as light comedy that addresses a dark subject. It isn't easy to avoid burying the serious within the fluff of frivolity, but LaValle manages to balance humor and tragedy in a story that is strange but purposeful.

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