Book Club Guide

The Devil Takes You Home

by Gabino Iglesias · 2022 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

Desperation as the door to horror — what a father will do for his dying child
Noir and horror combined — the supernatural emerging from the mundanely terrible
Bilingual prose — English and Spanish as the texture of a specific American experience

About this book

A man facing his daughter's terminal illness and crushing medical debt takes a job as a hitman for a cartel — and the job spirals into something far more dangerous and supernatural than he anticipated. Iglesias's Bram Stoker Award-winning novel blends noir, horror and Latino working-class desperation in prose that switches between English and Spanish.

Published in 2022, The Devil Takes You Home won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel. Iglesias writes in what he calls 'Barrio Noir,' blending genres and languages to reflect specifically Latino American experience.

Discussion questions

The protagonist takes a hitman job out of desperation over his daughter's illness and medical debt. How does Iglesias develop this — does the horror that follows feel like punishment, consequence, or something the desperation itself summoned?
The novel moves between code-switching English and Spanish throughout. What does this bilingual prose achieve — and what does it ask of readers who don't speak both languages?
The supernatural elements emerge gradually from what begins as straightforward (if violent) crime fiction. How does Iglesias manage this genre blending — and at what point does the novel become unmistakably horror?
American healthcare costs and the impossible choices they create for working-class families are the novel's realistic horror, alongside its supernatural elements. How does Iglesias connect these two registers of horror?
The Devil Takes You Home won the Bram Stoker Award. What does it do for horror as a genre — and how does it use genre conventions to address very real economic desperation?