One Christmas Eve, a gentleman’s family amuses itself by telling ghost stories. He freaks out and wanders off by himself, then, encouraged by his infinitely patient wife, decides to write down the ghost story that has cast a pall over his entire life. Then he tells us about it, The End.
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.
Lucien (Lucy) Minor is a teenager living somewhere in proto-industrial Europe. Spurned in love and in search of adventure, he takes a post as undermajordomo (that is, assistant to the majordomo, or chief steward) in the gloomy Castle Von Aux. (What happened to the previous undermajordomo, you ask? No one seems to want to talk about that.)
Here’s a premise for you: Lizzie Borden killed her father and stepmother because they’d been possessed by some kind of evil supernatural sea-monster. Honestly, though, it’s not that much more absurd than the plot of your average episode of The X-Files, and that was a crossover hit with teenage boys desperate for a glimpse of Scully’s cleavage. (To the men who were those boys, I say: you should totally watch The Fall, not only is it a great crime drama, you get to see Gillian Anderson in her bra, plus she bangs that kid who played Merlin. He’s not so great-looking. THAT COULD BE YOU.)
On an Army base codenamed Hotel Echo, in what used to be England, a class full of children is strapped into wheelchairs so tightly that only their eyes can move. They’re young, around ten, but the lessons they learn include Greek myths, calculus, and European history. Melanie, our heroine, is top of the class and has no trouble remembering her lessons. But, she asks her teacher, does the stated population of 1,036,900 include Birmingham’s suburbs, or just the central metropolitan area? “Who cares?” he replies. “It’s irrelevant. The population of Birmingham is zero.”
Things aren’t going well in Motor City. Unemployment is rife. Foreclosures dot the suburbs. Police won’t stop shooting black kids. And on top of everything, a murderer has started creating bizarre human-animal hybrid corpses.
I wanted to reward myself, after several weeks of battling the narrative tributaries of Zia Haider Rahman, with a proper story, properly told. Boy, do I need to be careful what I wish for.
I was reading an online discussion recently about Sarah Waters, in which it was observed that her novels’ resistance of conventional genre boundaries made it impossible to predict how they would end. I had this in mind while navigating the Little Stranger, and I think it’s a pertinent comment. The novel has elements of pure joyful gothicism*, complete with a possible ghost; however, it also encompasses the psychological thriller, as well as the more mundane arena of mid-century drawing-room romance, all with the occasionally-glimpsed feminist undercurrent which has to be expected from Waters. Continue reading The Little Stranger
A delightfully creepy children’s book from one of the masters of contemporary intelligent sci fi/fantasy. Coraline moves into a new home with her parents and discovers a door leading to another house in which reside…people who are not QUITE her parents. This would have DEFINITELY given me nightmares once upon a time (and might still, for that matter). Continue reading Coraline
I’ve read this before, but Sim’s sister is doing it for her HSC and I wanted to refresh my memory. I did not remember that it was SO TEDIOUS, which is impressive given how short it is. The plot was obviously fairly radical and topical at the time, but being impressed by the concept didn’t provide enough momentum to stop me from joining in when yet another character inevitably longed for the tender embrace of death. Yes! Please! Die and make this book end!