I really love John Darnielle as a songwriter, but his long form writing just never clicks for me. Especially in "Devil House", it tends to come off as pretentious - even moreso with (one of) the narrators (the second person one, which oh my god, please give me a horror/mystery novel written this decade that doesn't have a random change to a second person narrator. My kingdom for first or third person only!). And like, I understand the point of the King Arthur/D&D style story within the story, but was it really necessary? Because it kinda just seemed like JD wanted to write a King Arthur/D&D style story, so he stuck it in there and worked around it.

And (I know I sound like a broken record here but) again with all the telling and not showing! Also might be where I'm getting a lot of the pretentiousness. Just so much rambling (sometimes related to the story, sometimes not) to the point where most of the time I didn't even know what was happening until a character came along at the end of a chapter to summarize things.

I hate being this critical of a songwriter I love, but the book barely even lives up to the synopsis (which I was ecstatic about when it was first announced).

At the end, I can't even tell you if the Devil House is the abandoned porn store (like it's presented to be) or the white witch's house from Gage's first true crime book that also gets the "was she crazy, or did the house drive her to murder??" treatment, despite how much I heard throughout the book about how the location of a crime scene and/or murder mystery is essential to the storytelling. And the ending felt less like an existential, "we'll never have the answers to all our mysteries, and that's the true crime showbiz baby" exit and more like a cop-out with a chance to ramble about how society treats the unhoused.