In upstate New York, the imprints of two deceased souls have lingered in the house they both occupied, and have become infused into its walls, floors, ceilings, and structure. Unable to look away or stop listening, they witness the final illness of the house’s subsequent owner and, after his death, the arrival of his estranged wife and children, who come to clear out his possessions but who set in motion a chain of events that sees the house’s secrets come spilling out one at a time.
This is a difficult book to put in a box. I’ve tagged it “horror” because, after all, the main characters are ghosts; really, though, like all decent horror, it merely uses the mechanism of the supernatural to enable an examination of humanness. In this case, the primary interest of the novel is the relationships between children and parents, and perhaps especially between daughters and mothers.
That said, the conception of the supernatural in this novel is an interesting one. The ghosts are embodied in the house. They communicate with one another, and have distinct personalities, but do not have any kind of physical form apart from one another. Alice, who was the first ghost, says at one point, “when Sandra first came, I was tempted to share, to explain. But now I know: certain stories must remain mine, so that there is a me to remain.” With no choice but to observe, they make bets with each other about likely events in the house, and wonder aloud about events outside the house that have had a noticeable effect on the people in it.
This is a fairly short novel, and there’s a sweetness about it. I enjoyed reading it, but I hesitate to recommend it. While at times its observations of character and family interaction are astute, at other times it descends into stereotype to a degree. There’s only one “surprise” in the book’s revelations that actually feels surprising, and the bow the plot threads are all tied into at the end is certainly far too neat. So not a masterpiece, but a more interesting example than others in the genre.