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Writing A Literary Horror Novel
Blame the Devil follows a wounded outsider in 1967 Jersey City, as she discovers her terrifying identity as an Avenging Angel and confronts an ancient evil hiding behind the face of ordinary authority. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration for the story was real life. With one exception (which I won’t mention for it would be a spoiler) the evil Victor Varde is a spot-on duplicate of a child molester from my old neighborhood who has haunted me since eighth grade. From that starting point, I felt it was important that I be patient—giving the plotline room to breathe and make shifts, and allowing the physical characteristics, stories, and inner lives of each of the novel’s characters to achieve fullness.
Donna’s journey is both painful and increasingly powerful. How did you approach writing her as more than either a victim or a hero?
I had a couple of things in mind. One, I wanted to avoid a pair of opposing cliches: abused girl as unadulterated victim, and abused girl as super-hero. The second thing was that, obviously, she had to evolve. “A” and “Z” couldn’t be the same. Again, how this change would happen only became clear to me over time. Her nurse Livvy Gomez was key in this, and, potentially, an undervalued character.
The evolution of Donna is very much aligned with what Anne Lamott describes as watching a Polaroid develop—stick around with the story long enough and more and more details, windows, and trap doors emerge.
The novel gives its supernatural horror a very grounded, neighborhood-level presence. Why was it important for evil to feel ordinary before it became cosmic?
It was the way the novel evolved. When I first put fingers to key, I did not have an intention of writing a literary horror novel. A couple of things moved me in that direction. One, was a simple matter of what I’ve written before—that is an exploration of life through the compact landscape of the Jersey City Heights/Plateau of my youth. I had a “been there, done that” recognition. So the realistic was in the groundwork.
Additionally, I had, from the beginning, been describing Victor Varde in demonic terms. From that, the move to going all in on the supernatural came to me quickly. A couple of early readers of the manuscript were against this, arguing that I had a good naturalistic novel in front of me. But the supernatural level was appealing, even compelling. I couldn’t resist going there and engaging the metaphysical questions which have followed me for decades.
When and where will the book be available?
I’m hoping it will be available by early 2027.
Author Link: Instagram | Book Review
Blame the Devil
Joe Colicchio’s Blame the Devil is a dark supernatural literary horror novel about evil, faith, revenge, and the strange burden of being chosen to answer cruelty when ordinary justice fails. Set largely in 1967 Jersey City, the story follows Donna Mahoney and Dennis Henry, two outsiders whose tentative friendship grows in the shadow of family grief, Catholic guilt, neighborhood violence, and the monstrous presence of Officer Victor Varde. As Donna begins to understand her identity as an Avenging Angel, the novel shifts from coming-of-age story into supernatural revenge tale, asking what justice looks like when evil is not just human but ancient.
What struck me first was the voice. This is not a quiet book. It has a big, restless, street-corner energy, moving from cosmic history to neighborhood gossip to brutal realism in a matter of pages. I liked how Colicchio makes Jersey City feel almost mythic without sanding off its rough edges. The Plateau is not just a setting. It feels like a pressure cooker, full of Catholic ritual, old grudges, kids trying to survive, and adults who should know better but often do worse. The supernatural pieces work because they grow out of that world instead of floating above it. Devils do not arrive in smoke and thunder here. They wear uniforms, sit in diners, tell ugly stories, and know how to make people feel small. That choice gives the horror genre a grounded, bitter charge.
I also found the book’s moral imagination both compelling and uncomfortable. Colicchio is not afraid to make the reader sit with pain, especially the damage done to Donna and Richie, and there were moments when the darkness felt almost punishing. But I think that is part of the book’s design. It wants to ask whether forgiveness is always noble, whether justice without mercy becomes its own kind of danger, and whether rage can be a calling rather than a flaw. Donna’s arc is especially interesting because she is not written as a simple victim or a simple hero. She is vulnerable, funny, wounded, curious, and increasingly dangerous. Dennis, with his odd precision and gentle devotion, gives the story some needed tenderness. Their bond keeps the novel from becoming only a catalog of harm.
As a work of supernatural horror, Blame the Devil is best suited for readers who like their genre fiction messy, ambitious, and morally thorny. It will appeal to those who enjoy literary horror, Catholic-inflected supernatural stories, revenge narratives, and character-driven novels that mix the cosmic with the grimly local. I would recommend it most to readers who do not mind disturbing material and who appreciate a book that argues with faith, justice, and evil rather than simply using them as decoration. It is rough-edged and strange, but it has a unique feel.
