House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias
A Book Review by Debra K. Every
Back in Puerto Rico when Gabino Iglesias was in 6th or 7th grade, he was given a class assignment to write a story in English as a way to improve his language skills. So far, so good. But as he shares with Janelle Janson in a Dark Matter interview back in 2023, the story that Iglesias came up with was…creative. It was about a deformed child who brutally murders everyone in his neighborhood. And yes, it had plenty of gore. This early creativity seems a precursor to his later work, like House of Bone and Rain.
You can imagine what happened next. The school called Iglesias’ parents for a meeting. I mean, who wouldn’t? His parents listened to what the two school officials had to say, after which his father said, “Okay, but was it well-written?”
And so began Gabino Iglesias’ journey into writing. We are all the better for it.
House of Bone and Rain, is Iglesias’ much anticipated next novel after having won both a Bram Stoker and a Shirley Jackson in the same year for The Devil Takes You Home. He is the first Latino to have won a Bram Stoker in the novel category. He’s also the inventor of the Barrio Noir genre—a term he was compelled to coin after publishing an earlier piece, Zero Saints, part crime, part mystery, part thriller, all set in the speculative world of barrio mysticism. Not bad for a boy writing about deformed kids murdering neighbors.
House of Bone and Rain does not disappoint.
It has been compared to the 1986 film Stand by Me, based on a Stephen King novella, The Body. I can see where the comparison comes from but, for me, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the boys in Dreamcatcher, also by Stephen King. Neither of these King stories, however, has the grit and despair with which Iglesias surrounds his five characters, growing up too quickly in a world where violence begets violence, as seen in House of Bone and Rain.
We meet Gabe, Bimbo, Xavier, Tavo, and Paul—five teenaged boys connected by their shared struggles on an island with a history of poverty and isolation. But these boys aren’t cardboard cliché renderings. Iglesias shows us a diversity in interests and even skin color, none of which stops them from being a family. Their bond runs deep. It is unshakeable.
It’s their first summer after having graduated from high school.
They face the same kinds of worries, dreams, and uncertainties that grip many at that time of life. Their world is rocked when Bimbo’s mother, Maria, is killed by a drive-by shooter in front of the club where she works. After the funeral, Bimbo disappears. When he comes back, he’s changed—white hot with rage and focused on one thing only. Revenge. His friends are reluctant to join his quest, but considering their bond in House of Bone and Rain, they decide to support him, which only serves to stoke his anger to near breaking. But when he invokes their shared history—how they’ve always been there for each other—they join him, even after they discover that Maria was killed by a member of the Papalote gang, the most dangerous on the island.
And then Hurricane Maria hits., and evil spirits, and monsters, and then ghosts.
It’s as if Bimbo’s mother, herself, unleashes her anger. The island is devasted. People go missing and it’s left to friends and families to search them out. Prayers are spoken. Incantations are intoned. But it doesn’t stop the visions or nightmares in House of Bone and Rain. Magic is everywhere. It’s part of the island’s DNA, the very bones and flesh of the people who live there. As Gabe’s grandmother says: “We are surrounded by ghosts.” This is a woman who filled her bathroom with candles because it was where the spirits lived.
Gabe and his friends use the chaos to search out and kill the people responsible for what becomes an escalating death toll, allowing their most brutal instincts to take over. And as events spiral out of control, they turn to ancient gods and local superstitions for protection. Gabe is our window into this world and we watch as he embraces the violence he had tried so hard to avoid.
Iglesias is at his best when marrying this reality with myth. He seeds his novel with hints and references to what will eventually blossom into a full-blown supernatural narrative—one that is impossible to put down. He does this fearlessly, while weaving his tale with moments of great beauty. And even though these moments are entwined in and around the glare of brutal violence we can’t help but stop for a moment to take in their artistry.
“Death swallows words.”
“I wished I could grab my last sentence out of the air and swallow it whole.”
“July ran toward its end like a spooked horse, dragging the last vestiges of our childhood with it.”
This is poetry, powerful and evocative. It is through this poetry that we are able to connect with the humanity of the island’s inhabitants as if it is our own.
House of Bone and Rain is so much more than a coming-of-age story. This is a novel about a community’s despair in the face of disaster. Told against a backdrop of magic and ancient lore, House of Bone and Rain illustrates how we ache, deeply, for the vulnerability of those living on an island that belongs to the U.S. but isn’t embraced by it. We feel their anguish and the cycle of hopelessness that surrounds them. And we are left breathless by the sheer creativity of what Iglesias brings.
These characters are real. Their lives are real. And because of that, when the monsters come we as readers believe they are real as well. Gabino Iglesias once said, “I want it to hurt me as I’m writing it, and I want it to hurt you [when you read it] because that’s the only way it feels real.”
Oh yes. It hurts.
House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias
From the Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil Takes You Home, a group of five teenage boys in Puerto Rico seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered. Set during a vicious hurricane, a Latinx Stand By Me with a haunted, dark heart.
For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo’s mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree.
Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. Soon, they learn Maria was gunned down by guys working for the drug kingpin of Puerto Rico. No one has ever gone up against him and survived. As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.
Blurring the boundaries between myth, mysticism, and the grim realities of our world, House of Bone and Rain is a harrowing coming of age story; a doomed tale of devotion, the afterlife of violence, and what rolls in on the tide.