He takes pride in working thoroughly and methodically, and in trying, as he puts it, to 'honor the dead in my books.' Darnielle casts no doubt on Gage's efforts or intentions: he is doing the best he could possibly do, and yet, over the course of the novel, he realizes that the very nature of his profession means he is doomed to fail.Īt Devil House's start, Gage's literary agent pitches him a project: there's a house on the market in Milpitas, Calif., where a grisly, still-unsolved double murder took place. He is a true-crime writer with an extremely active imagination and a deep sense of ethics. But unlike his creator, who has spoken publicly about a past that includes abuse, self-harm, and troubles with drugs, Gage seems to have little to no personal experience with his material. His main character, Gage Chandler, is, like Darnielle himself, a chronicler of pain. In his third book, Devil House, Darnielle shifts his vantage point on suffering without losing or lessening his willingness to confront it. His first two novels, Wolf in White Van and Universal Harvester, have protagonists who are white-knuckling their way through misery Carmen María Machado wrote that the latter traces 'the dimensions of human loneliness and grief.' His most famous song's most famous line is I'm going to make it through this year if it kills me. John Darnielle has made a career - well, two: he is both a National Book Award-nominated novelist and the lead singer-songwriter of a beloved indie band called the Mountain Goats - out of writing frankly about darkness.

Devil house darnielle