The Devil Takes You Home: A Novel
This genre-defying, Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker award-winning thriller follows a father desperate to salvage what's left of his family--even if it means a descent into violence.
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 Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR, Harper's Bazaar, Chicago Tribune, Vulture, Oprah Daily, CrimeReads, The Millions, and many more!
An Edgar Award Finalist - A Bram Stoker Award Winner - A Shirley Jackson Award Winner - A Book of the Month Club Pick - An August Indie Next List Selection - An ABA Indie Bestseller
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Community Reviews
Some fav passages:
“The gigantic sudden nonexistence of a beautiful soul that was supposed to always be there was the universe, y era un universo eternamente negro, triste, y frío. Melisa y yo morimos en vida, and that’s the worst kind of death “
_<…and it was an eternally black universe, sad and cold. Melisa and I died but stayed alive, and that’s the worst kind of death>_
“Sometimes things go wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it. And yet, we mostly refuse to give up. Instead, we invent gods to help us push forward. Pain invades us and we find reasons to carry on. Death approaches, bony arms outstretched, and we fight it with that inexplicable desire to keep living.
The majority of people always want to think life is worth living, that we must do everything in our power to keep going…they don’t grasp that the value of their life is much lower than they imagine.
Think about it.
How much is your life worth? I’ll tell you: the value of your life is less than the craving of a desperate junkie who breaks into your house to steal your shit and finds you there…if you’re Black or brown, the value of your life is less than the fragile masculinity of a cop who wants to feel superior or a racist who wants you out of the way so they’re not forced to face someone they don’t understand”
“True pleasure is not wanting anything. Sure, some things feel great when we do them, but we often take for granted what we have, and sometimes what we have is enough.”
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