BOOK REVIEW: I Live In Hell by Mike Salinas
From the ice of the lowest level of Hell to the freezing streets of Chicago.
Hector Ghouseau is an alcoholic burnout scraping by in Chicago. Little does he know, his father lost a bet with Hell long ago, and Beelzebub is coming to collect his winnings; Hector’s soul. Bub’s recruited a serial killer to assist him, and the walls seem to closing in on Hector. With the help of his best friend Tommy, his ex-girlfriend Sammie, and an angel taking the form of a spider named Bandini, Hector struggles to survive the onslaught of Bub, his hired killer, and his army of flies.
One of my favorite aspects of the Mike Salinas’s debut is the way that it mixes a gritty Chicago full of down and out characters with a fantastic, at times surreal, vision of Hell full of strange beasts. Salinas’s Chicago is one full of dive bars, run-down apartments, liquor stores, and smelly alleys. Supernatural creatures hide amongst it in the form of insects, spiders, stray cats and pigeons.
The cosmology of the I Live In Hell uses Christianity as a basis, but takes on its own direction. God is distant, perhaps gone altogether, and Lucifer has given up his throne in Hell, leaving Bub to take over. Even Jesus shows up in an unexpected place in a scene that’s both fascinating and hilarious.
This is another thing I really enjoyed about this novel. Salinas uses humor well without undercutting any of the horror of the things happening to Hector and his friends. In what’s probably the most harrowing part of the book, a demon makes its way into Hector and Tommy’s apartment. It uses its powers to force the two to relive their most traumatic moments from childhood. In Hector’s case, it’s his abuse at the hands of his mother. In Tommy’s, the suicide of his big brother. This disturbing scene is followed up by Tommy noting, after they manage to banish the demon, that it stole all their beer on the way out.
Besides it’s great, grimy atmosphere, the pacing of the plot is excellent. It moves fast, especially towards the end. It keeps you turning the page while still having interesting asides into the lives of its characters and world building. Like the best supernatural thrillers, it escalates gradually in its other-worldliness, coming to an intense and strange climax.
I Live In Hell is Mike Salinas’s debut book, and it’s a strong one. He mixes creeping dread, intense violence, and horrifying trauma into a page-turning story with a unique take on Hell and the afterlife. I look forward to seeing what Salinas does next.
Buy I Live In Hell by Mike Salinas here.
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