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The Boss in The Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil
Professor Vlad Smith is on a terrifying quest, one that will take him from the halls of our most hallowed institutions to the most run-down of old houses in blighted neighborhoods. A mysterious committee, shredded yellowed newspapers, a daguerrotype of a Confederate soldier, a headless corpse and a corpseless head.... These are the clues which Smith must piece together to save his sanity and his daughter, and uncover the terrible secret of the Boss in the Wall.
"What a scary story, like a modern Dracula but completely original in its concept and chillingly realistic in its narration. Avram Davidson was one of the finest writers the fantasy field has had, endlessly inventive and uniquely vivid. Grania Davis has completed this work, which he left unfinished, in a way that does him proud."
-Poul Anderson
"The Boss in the Wall is a last powerful and major work by a major and powerful author.
-Gregory Benford
"It is hard to imagine the genre that could encompass him; it is even more difficult to imagine fantasy or science fiction without him."
-he Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
"Davidson may be always doomed to be underappreciated, but he remains a true original and, in his own subtle way, one of the greats."
-The St. James Guide to Fantasy
"What a scary story, like a modern Dracula but completely original in its concept and chillingly realistic in its narration. Avram Davidson was one of the finest writers the fantasy field has had, endlessly inventive and uniquely vivid. Grania Davis has completed this work, which he left unfinished, in a way that does him proud."
-Poul Anderson
"The Boss in the Wall is a last powerful and major work by a major and powerful author.
-Gregory Benford
"It is hard to imagine the genre that could encompass him; it is even more difficult to imagine fantasy or science fiction without him."
-he Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
"Davidson may be always doomed to be underappreciated, but he remains a true original and, in his own subtle way, one of the greats."
-The St. James Guide to Fantasy
117 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 21, 1998
5 people are currently reading
155 people want to read
About the author
Avram Davidson
431 books94 followersAvram Davidson was an American Jewish writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many stories that do not fit into a genre niche. He won a Hugo Award and three World Fantasy Awards in the science fiction and fantasy genre, a World Fantasy Life Achievement award, and a Queen's Award and an Edgar Award in the mystery genre. Davidson edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1962 to 1964. His last novel The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil was completed by Grania Davis and was a Nebula Award finalist in 1998. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says "he is perhaps sf's most explicitly literary author".
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 9, 2023
The writing here is classic Davidson, erudite and witty, prose and settings layered and constructed with a masterful eye towards crafting something multi-dimensional and full of nuanced character and detail. Narrative threads and digressions spawn ceaselessly, diverging and converging, leading the reader down a twisting path that is easy to lose sight of if not attentive. The genre however is a bit of a diversion for him, a horror that is deeply chilling, rooted in myth and urban legend sprung wholly from his incredibly fertile imagination.
December 27, 2011
If Avram Davidson does anything (and he does, in fact, do many, many things), he demands that you pay attention. In even the shortest of his short stories the reader is given fragments of perspective; it is then our job to piece these together.
The Boss in the Wall is filled with these fragments, mixed liberally with stretches of purer narrative.
The characters are forgettable, faceless, although the alliterative names are often enjoyable.
But the Paper-Men aren't the scariest part. No, very best of it is a short story-within-the-story, tucked somewhere near the end, and one of a sparse handful of times when my blood has actually run cold.
'Mother was very hungry.'
The Boss in the Wall is filled with these fragments, mixed liberally with stretches of purer narrative.
The characters are forgettable, faceless, although the alliterative names are often enjoyable.
But the Paper-Men aren't the scariest part. No, very best of it is a short story-within-the-story, tucked somewhere near the end, and one of a sparse handful of times when my blood has actually run cold.
'Mother was very hungry.'
June 20, 2012
I bought this book purely because of the title. I have a yen for the creepy, and "The Boss in the Wall" is a brilliantly creepy name.
The Boss in the Wall is one name for a creature also known as a Clicker or a Paper-man. These creatures resemble emaciated homeless people, and there's a suggestion in the book that they originally were, but they've degenerated into something not human - there are hollows all over their bodies, which they stuff with scraps of newspaper to keep warm, they eat rats (most of the time, anyway), and while they're technically dead, they're fast and agile. They're quite aggressive, and their bites usually fester and turn gangrenous. The reason for their name lies in their preference for living inside the hollow spaces between the walls in old houses, especially houses that have been left empty for a couple of years. The only way to tell if your house has one is to put your ear to the wall and listen for a rustling or the chattering of their teeth. Professor Vlad Smith, who is drawn into the world of these creatures when his uncle and daughter are attacked by one, travels across the country seeking knowledge from researchers who have devoted decades to tracking the things, some with dubious reasons for doing so.
The book is structurally similar to Dracula, in that it's partly a collage of notes, minutes of meetings and extracts from papers, arranged to tell a story. The central image of the story came to renowned sci-fi and fantasy author Avram Davidson (the guy who wrote "To Serve Man") in a nightmare, and, as Michael Swanwick points out in his introduction, he made a heroic effort to craft a novel out of it. His former wife, Grania Davis, chipped in to help put a shape on the thing, which went from being a novel to a novella and back again several times. Between them both, they crafted something interesting and entertaining, but I'm sorry to say it felt kind of disjointed to me.
It rattles along as members of the secret research committee compile and collate information, but then screeches to a very abrupt halt when Vlad catches up with them and sits in on a meeting. Characters and ideas show up in this scene that perhaps could have been introduced or hinted at earlier, which take the treatment of the concept in a different direction that doesn't feel like it's been thought through enough - I'll throw in the spoilers at the end of this, so you don't have to read them if you don't want to.* Questions are raised in the closing stages of the book that are never answered; I've no problem with novels being coy and mysterious, but if these questions were never going to be answered anyway, why not introduce them sooner and use them to flesh out the world of the story?** There follows a climax that, while pretty cool, brings in two new characters and seems sort of forced.***
A good novella, but in some ways unsatisfying. Still, it's well worth reading.
Spoilers/Notes
*A character shows up in this meeting who is clearly outlined as being something of a pantomime villain, a pompous pseudo-intellectual who wants to farm the creatures, because he thinks they might have a profitable life-extending enzyme. This idiot and his despicable plan are introduced within the last ten pages.
**The questions being, "Are there any female creatures?" and "Could we train one of them to speak?"
*** Vlad brings his traumatised daughter back to the house where the attack happened in the hope that this will cure her fear, even though he has just attended a meeting where he saw video evidence of the house devils' existence, and he knows how dangerous they are. It turns out that the entire house is infested with the things, and they all attack at once as a prison escapee burns the house down. The final image is of a cluster of Bosses dancing on the roof, while the house burns beneath them. A cool ending, but the characters had to be pushed along to get there.
The Boss in the Wall is one name for a creature also known as a Clicker or a Paper-man. These creatures resemble emaciated homeless people, and there's a suggestion in the book that they originally were, but they've degenerated into something not human - there are hollows all over their bodies, which they stuff with scraps of newspaper to keep warm, they eat rats (most of the time, anyway), and while they're technically dead, they're fast and agile. They're quite aggressive, and their bites usually fester and turn gangrenous. The reason for their name lies in their preference for living inside the hollow spaces between the walls in old houses, especially houses that have been left empty for a couple of years. The only way to tell if your house has one is to put your ear to the wall and listen for a rustling or the chattering of their teeth. Professor Vlad Smith, who is drawn into the world of these creatures when his uncle and daughter are attacked by one, travels across the country seeking knowledge from researchers who have devoted decades to tracking the things, some with dubious reasons for doing so.
The book is structurally similar to Dracula, in that it's partly a collage of notes, minutes of meetings and extracts from papers, arranged to tell a story. The central image of the story came to renowned sci-fi and fantasy author Avram Davidson (the guy who wrote "To Serve Man") in a nightmare, and, as Michael Swanwick points out in his introduction, he made a heroic effort to craft a novel out of it. His former wife, Grania Davis, chipped in to help put a shape on the thing, which went from being a novel to a novella and back again several times. Between them both, they crafted something interesting and entertaining, but I'm sorry to say it felt kind of disjointed to me.
It rattles along as members of the secret research committee compile and collate information, but then screeches to a very abrupt halt when Vlad catches up with them and sits in on a meeting. Characters and ideas show up in this scene that perhaps could have been introduced or hinted at earlier, which take the treatment of the concept in a different direction that doesn't feel like it's been thought through enough - I'll throw in the spoilers at the end of this, so you don't have to read them if you don't want to.* Questions are raised in the closing stages of the book that are never answered; I've no problem with novels being coy and mysterious, but if these questions were never going to be answered anyway, why not introduce them sooner and use them to flesh out the world of the story?** There follows a climax that, while pretty cool, brings in two new characters and seems sort of forced.***
A good novella, but in some ways unsatisfying. Still, it's well worth reading.
Spoilers/Notes
*A character shows up in this meeting who is clearly outlined as being something of a pantomime villain, a pompous pseudo-intellectual who wants to farm the creatures, because he thinks they might have a profitable life-extending enzyme. This idiot and his despicable plan are introduced within the last ten pages.
**The questions being, "Are there any female creatures?" and "Could we train one of them to speak?"
*** Vlad brings his traumatised daughter back to the house where the attack happened in the hope that this will cure her fear, even though he has just attended a meeting where he saw video evidence of the house devils' existence, and he knows how dangerous they are. It turns out that the entire house is infested with the things, and they all attack at once as a prison escapee burns the house down. The final image is of a cluster of Bosses dancing on the roof, while the house burns beneath them. A cool ending, but the characters had to be pushed along to get there.
May 6, 2025
cool idea very boring execution. also, which is worse, unnecessarily racist and offensive to homeless people.
May 4, 2023
Rating: 3 stars.
An novella that moves between epistolic and regular storytelling as various academic-minded characters investigate the existence of the 'Paper-Men'. I thought it was a interesting read but didn't quite cohere into an overall satisfying narrative.
An novella that moves between epistolic and regular storytelling as various academic-minded characters investigate the existence of the 'Paper-Men'. I thought it was a interesting read but didn't quite cohere into an overall satisfying narrative.
July 19, 2022
This is a very strange and fascinating little novella it seems like it is from an earlier era than 1999. My friend and i both read.it in early 2000's and still talk about it. I was able to get my hands on some.copies from the publisher for both of us. It is not as creepy to me now as it was 20 years ago but still is a great gothic novella.
May 10, 2024
an old horror short novel. i did not particularly found it engaging, but horror novels of this nature are not my preferred genre. atmosphere wise, it reminded me of a mix between "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" and "Sherlock Holmes", i found both of those interesting separately, but in this combination i can't say it worked for me.
July 13, 2022
This horror novella was nominated for the Nebula and Locus awards (posthumously for Davidson) in 1999. The story title is a good plot synopsis. Took a bit of effort to put everything together (the story skips around a lot), but it was well worth it.
December 24, 2025
A perfect story! Leaves chills even years later. This book has stuck around in my mind since I listened to it and I swear I think about it daily!
October 22, 2023
Stefan Rudnicki isn't my favourite narrator, which is not to say he's bad, he's actually excellent, but his voice is not my favourite, which isn't his fault, or anyone's, but mine. This is a fantastic tale of an academic whose life is torn apart by an occurrence in an old house who goes chasing a folkloric myth through a series of wonderfully eccentric academic and historical circles, drenched with the atmosphere of lingering antebelllum and civil war memories. A small, perfectly-formed masterpiece of strangeness and suspense.
May 15, 2016
Really a treatise on the House Devil, this is magnificently written if not very much hair-raisingly terrifying. There's a tiny bit that I could not discern a motivation for, but otherwise this is beautifully slanted to exploit the academic aspect of horror stories. From this to Ferox, a couple of steps.
December 30, 2007
One of the best books and authors that you've never heard of. Gene Wolfe references this book in passing in a horror story. Trusting Wolfe I checked it out, and uncovered one of the most inventive and troubling horror novels I've ever read.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews