From the first couple of chapters of Sign Here, I thought I was in for a fun romp along the lines of a Christopher Moore-esque adventure. The premise certainly lends itself to such silliness: In Hell, a “deals maker” (not an actual demon, but a human who died and ended up there for reasons we’ll eventually learn) named Peyote Trip (everybody in Hell is given ridiculous names) contends with the day-to-day annoyances of existence in the underworld. The Deals Department is on the fifth floor, and it’s not a bad gig. The lower floors are where the real torture happens, but if you manage to make your way up to the higher levels, you face the annoyances of unreasonable bosses, pens that never work, temperatures that are too hot or too cold, and bars that serve nothing but Jägermeister. If you’ve ever moaned that your job is hell, you have the right idea.
Peyote is good at his job, which amounts to swooping in on mortals in the throes of turmoil and getting them to sign their souls away in exchange for favors. In an early chapter, we see Peyote railroad a teenager into signing in return for getting into her first-choice college and having a successful career as a veterinarian. But he has his eye on a particular family: the Harrisons. Through a loophole (or maybe it’s a bonus package), if he can get five members of the same family line to sign away their souls, he can get a second chance on Earth. He’s already collected four over a number of generations, so he is highly motivated.
Which brings us to the other half of the story: the Harrisons and their summer visit to their lake home in New Hampshire. We learn early on that parents Lily and Silas have a troubled marriage and that Lily is having an affair. But Peyote is mostly interested in their children, Sean and Mickey. Per Peyote, Sean was “into some sick shit on the Internet,” but “Mickey was different. She wasn’t exactly clean; she had her own sticky parts. But she was quieter in her head than Sean, which made her more intriguing. . . . Sean was my safety school; Mickey was my reach.”
Mickey is a troubled teen and is bullied in school until she meets Ruth, the cool girl who takes Mickey under her wing. The girls become close very quickly and Silas invites Ruth to come stay with them for the summer. Lily is very uncomfortable with inviting a teenage girl they barely know to their lake house. Apparently this dredges up some old memories and not-so-nice-stuff that may have happened there years ago. With tensions high, it seems like a prime opportunity for Peyote to complete his “set.”
As Claudia Lux’s debut novel, Sign Here is engaging and fun, but it gets dark when the history of the family and the events at the lake house come to light. And then we start to learn the history of Calamity Ganon, Peyote’s new co-worker, and what happened in her life to bring her to Hell, and the story gets reeeeeeally dark. I give Lux props for balancing the intersecting story lines so well and for bringing serious themes into what initially promised to be a light-hearted fantasy.
Where the novel started to lose me is when events at the lake house come to a head and Lux introduces some plot twists that just seem. . . unlikely. The climax at the lake house seemed rather, shall I say “cinematic”? That’s not a slur, but the trouble with books is you have more time to process and ask questions than you do when intense visuals and music are coming at you in a movie theater.
I have to say, though, the novel ended strong and in a way that left me processing and asking questions in a good way. It ends in what I would call a bit of a paradox and leaves the reader pondering the nature of goodness and sacrifice. That’s a tall order for what started out as an absurd comedy about “life” in Hell. As such, I’m torn about how to rate it. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between 3 and 4 stars. I probably landed on 3.5 for the uneven nature and some questionable plot devices. I look forward to more from Claudia Lux and recommend giving this one a chance.
