DEVIL IN THE BASEMENT

Laws offers a historical novel based on stories from her own family.

In the introduction, the author describes her background with the FBI and working as a private eye—and discusses the degree to which she stuck to the facts in telling the story of her birth family. Her attention to detail is clear in the ways in which she lays out the relationships within the Amoruso family, Italian immigrants “always one meal away from hunger.” They’re a family with nine children; the narrative focuses most closely on Tucker, Jal, Rose, and their mother, Margaret. In the first third of the novel, set in 1928, Laws sketches the aspiring Tucker, a wannabe lawyer engaged to the daughter of local aristocrats, and the unruly, independent, younger Jal, who has little interest in school or respect for the local Ku Klux Klan. Rose, meanwhile, “fashioned herself as a flapper. She was wild, boisterous, and deliciously disgraceful.” Also on the scene is the demonic-seeming Ernie Yost, an antisocial and embittered coal miner who slowly amasses occult literature and ritual objects, including The Gospel of Satan and a severed hand he keeps in a box in his basement. There’s a rather abrupt time jump to 1933, and then again to 1941, but from there the novel settles into longer groove through the 1940s as the central characters navigate the aftermath of early decisions, shifting family roles, and the mounting tension between private ambitions and social expectations. As the characters change and Ernie’s obsessions grow toward dark ends, Laws maintains a steady momentum. There is the occasional info dump or detail that rings true to life but is less narratively satisfying, and the prose can take on the overheated flavor of film noir: “She smoked ciggys and loco weed. She was a full-on boozehound and enjoyed French kissing.” This style also extends to the dialogue, with seemingly ordinary West Virginia women saying things like, “Don’t you want your honeybun to be a Cadillac?” Stylistic quibbles aside, this is a riveting true story with a shocking ending.

A wild, gripping ride through West Virginia’s past.