Books book reviews Examining the Nightmare That Is the American Dream in When Devils Sing by Xan Kaur Four unlikely allies in a small town investigate a local teen’s disappearance… By Mahvesh Murad | Published on July 22, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share A blood-stained motel room just outside a small town called Carrion, in the deep south of America. A missing young man. A local legend about three devils. Four desperate young adults trying to change their fates. Souls to be sold, Faustian bargains to be made, and a hundred thousand screaming cicadas that rise in hunger, in greed, in want.  Xan Kaur’s debut novel When Devils Sing is centred around the oldest rumour in this fictitious small town in Georgia: that one of the founding fathers of Carrion met the devil at a crossroads at a time of great desperation, and made a bargain to ensure the infinite prosperity of certain families. “If you bring me a warm body,” the cicada-devil promised William Langley generations ago, “I will bless your lands and your soil. As long as I am fed, you will live like a king for the rest of your days.” Generations later, the Langley family are still at the top of the area’s pecking order, living their wealthy lives amidst others like them in the fancy community of Lake Clearwater, with the rest of Carrion constantly struggling to make ends meet. The lines between those who have and those who have not are etched into the land in Carrion, as clear and as hard as the southern sun. Every thirteen years, something evil awakens and demands to be fed. The cicadas start to scream, people start to go missing, yet somehow the rich families in Lake Clearwater remain privileged, powerful and rich, their micro-economy keeping all of Carrion afloat.  When a young man called Dawson goes missing from a blood-spattered motel room, and a young woman is caught in a hit-and-run accident right before the Cicada Festival, it sets off a chain of events that lead four young people into the deepest recesses of Carrion’s horrific past, in an attempt to rid themselves of a future they did not choose, in a town where something is building up to a powerful anniversary: “There was a palpable strangeness to Carrion, felt especially during the summer months, even more so with the arrival of the thirteen-year cicadas. Everything, both wonderful and horrible felt equally likely then. As if the sticky, muggy air buzzed with a sense of tremendous possibility.” Much of the horror element is atmospheric: Alongside the otherworldly din of the screaming cicadas, the constantly increasing pressure of something sinister in the air, and a festering within the town itself, there is also the actual presence of the devils of Carrion legend, two of whom appear again to make ominous deals that will clearly not end well.  Dawson’s best friend Reid is the youngest descendant of the Langleys, who remain the town’s wealthiest family. Reid, who has never quite accepted his mother’s sudden disappearance nor his father’s often violent pressure to act a certain way, now has to contend with Dawson’s loss. Dawson was last seen at the Colonial Motel, a rundown place managed by Neera’s Punjabi immigrant grandparents, which she helps clean while she harbours grand dreams of becoming a professional musician like her uncle, who mysteriously committed suicide years ago. Neera’s grandparents are heavily in debt and being threatened by the Langley’s henchman Wiley, a violent abusive man whose daughter Sam has been in a hit-and-run car accident and will do anything to save her little brother both from the outcome of that accident, and from their father’s abuse. Isaiah is the son of the only Black person in Carrion to have crossed the social divide into Lake Clearwater; he is destined to law school like his father, though he is not willing to turn his back on his Carrion family, or the anonymous podcast he produces that investigates Carrion mysteries.  Buy the Book When Devils Sing Xan Kaur Buy Book When Devils Sing Xan Kaur Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Four young people, each with something to run from, each with a need and a desperate desire to take control of their future, to find themselves building a new life as far from Carrion as they can. Each at a crossroads, just one decision away from leaving their old lives, for better or worse. Each carries a burden they’ve inherited; whether it be trauma or privilege, it is still generational pressure; something they didn’t ask for. But none of them are able to move on without trying to get to the truth, and that is what makes them heroes, albeit flawed ones. Kaur is good at making sure her protagonists are not single dimension “good” kids, as it were: All four of her lead characters struggle with their moral compass and question themselves and their intentions. Sam “learned early that people were rarely good, but they were also rarely bad. Instead, they were neither wholly committed to either side, which, in her eyes, was much worse.” Reid, for example, knows that no matter how much he wishes otherwise, “he was still a Langley. Cowardice and cruelty were in his blood.”  In this world, Kaur is clear that you inherit more than just wealth. You inherit the ways that wealth was gained, whatever bargains were made to achieve that status, whatever evil was committed for that power. You inherit it all. But are you willing to take it on, just to maintain the comforts you’ve known? Or are you willing to break free of that cycle? Everyone, it seems, is complicit, including all four POV characters. And the sacrifices made to keep Lake Clearwater prosperous are truly horrific: They are not always metaphysical, but made via blood, via innocent lives. Death lurks around the corner, encountered in the eyes of animals torn apart and left by the roadside, in the hypnotic power a simple song can have when its source is Faustian.  The lead characters make mistakes and bad decisions; they stumble in their path. They are trying to avoid being defined by their ancestry, but also aware that this may not be possible. The path before them is not evenly laid for each of them. When Devils Sing is ultimately a look at the horror of capitalist society and class warfare. Kaur’s metaphor of the elite continuously using everyone else in order to maintain their wealth is not subtle, but then YA isn’t known for its subtlety so we cannot fault the nature of the beast. That being said, the plot is a little awkwardly paced, with some not so neatly tied up ends, and as much as the setting is lush and appropriate, there are some things that aren’t explored to satisfaction, such as the three devils we meet, and why two are subordinate to the third (one assumes this has to do with the ancient pact).  Kaur is a first generation Punjabi-American raised in the American south and has a unique lens on the landscape, on society, and on the immigrant life of those who come to the US hoping for better than what they have known, only to find that class divides are just as deeply set in their new home. Generational wealth, privilege, power, greed; poverty, desperation, need—these things don’t change just because your geography has. Neera, on seeing her mother work with a detached focus, knows that there is a “level of capacity to her mom [she] could never quite mirror, no matter how hard she tried.” Neera guesses correctly that this was the immigrant experience “‘”that chewed you up and spat you out. Whoever you were after it all determined how far you made it in the world.”  When Devils Sing is a well-written Southern Gothic that provides a welcome perspective on immigration, capitalism and the nightmare that the American Dream can so easily become for many in the modern world. “How would it look,” asks one character, “if I said the secret to a long and healthy life was to be extraordinarily wealthy? This is a narrative I never wanted to promote.” It is, however, the absolute truth, making When Devils Sing a social critique in more ways than one. There is plenty here to chew on, should you choose to look beneath the sticky, creeping Southern Gothic ambience that covers the narrative like the kudzu vines of Carrion.[end-mark] When Devils Sing is published by Henry Holt & Co. The post Examining the Nightmare That Is the American Dream in <i>When Devils Sing</i> by Xan Kaur appeared first on Reactor.