Devil House

this is the kind of book that takes itself and puts itself back together again. it's full of john darnielle's typical preoccupation with small towns, houses, people, & the small details of people's lives. the kind of writing you can smell the asphalt from. i listened to the audiobook, so i got to hear john darnielle read his work out loud, which of course suits the text perfectly.

Darnielle has a very empathic pen and an amazing sense of story and use of words, without getting bloated or to ethereal. The character are heartbreaking lovely and the story is a fair look into the true crime obsession of today.

Not what I signed up to read at all based on the cover, title and Goodreads tags, but I found it beautifully written (found it very hard to stop reading at times) and considerate/compassionate regarding it's reflections on True Crime as a genre. The structure was very neat, just disorienting enough that I was charmed with its turns without becoming annoyed with not knowing what was going on.

I remember the first time I saw Apocalypse Now. I was 13 or so, watching it by myself. I remember sitting slack-jawed as the credits rolled. It was ugly. It was brutal. And it was undeniably a masterpiece.

I'm obviously finding myself in a similar situation at the end of Devil House.

Mr. Darnielle is a brilliant writer. I found this to be a tough read with a style unlike most books I read, but it was worth it.

I’m a huge fan of John Darnielle, and had read his prior two books as a fan, but this is the first one that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, even if they’ve never heard of the Mountain Goats. A complex and empathetic commentary on our cultural obsession with the true crime genre, with a story that unspools in different directions and never went where I was expecting. His naturalistic dialogue is a pleasure to read, and the characters are fascinating and empathetic. I loved everything about this book.