"Create No Images Of God. Accept The Images That God Has Provided. They Are Everywhere, In Everything.

“Oh yes, suddenly I realized what a good thing death can be, how just and fair, like a disinfectant, or a vacuum cleaner.”

Olga Tokarczuk, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD

THE SHARDS by BRET EASTON ELLIS (REVIEW)

quickly: a group of rich white friends are too high to notice that the new kid may be a serial killer (an imaginative young writer / a vain but popular group of friends / a new kid with a dark past / valium for breakfast, weed for lunch, ‘ludes for dinner, cocaine for dessert / boys, boys, boys / endless supplies of sex, drugs, and rock and roll / hippie cults hiding in the hills / blood sacrifices and bodily ‘arrangements’ / ‘there’s someone in the house’ / where are the adults??!)

For just a moment, I was a young, hot, high, and wealthy white seventeen-year-old in ’70s-’80s Los Angeles… My parents are never home, every day is an orgasm, and I have all the drugs and euphoria I want. In my endless pharmaceutical high, a serial killer is playing mind games with my friends and me, and I’m barely sober enough to notice it is happening.

That is THE SHARDS. I am confident that if I were to give this hardcover copy a good shake, either a quaalude, a Valium, or a mist of fine white powder may loosen itself from the bindings. These are the substances that seem to hold the story and its characters together. There’s also a hearty scoop of graphic, disturbing, deranged, stomach-churning violence… a stark contrast to the ultra-sweet lives of these young rich kids. The reality of these brutal slayings is what makes the kids’ dissociation all the more real.

★ ★ ★ ★

more thoughts: SPOILERS!

Some personal context… this isn’t the book I originally planned on reading after “HUMAN SACRIFICES” by María Ampeuro, but it was actually the perfect follow-up. The world of the characters in María’s stories were soaked in the harsh realities of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. What better pairing than a story on the other end of the spectrum… rich white kids with Daddy’s money made from exploiting others!

This is my first Bret Easton Ellis book. All I knew about the guy before reading this was that he wrote AMERICAN PSYCHO. I’ve seen the movie, but I’ve never read the book. I actually owned the book for years, and it was destroyed in a flooded storage facility. Nevertheless, I ended up meeting Bret Easton Ellis’s work anyways. Not because I sought out his penmanship, but because, as tends to happen, I just had a good feeling about the book based on the cover, description, and number of reviews.

This book made me feel poor and ugly, and I think that was the point!

This is a story about a story. The book opens with a prelude in present-day LA as our narrator, Bret Easton Ellis, is driving around and sees an old classmate, which ignites panic within him. 

From there we are sent back to the summer before Bret’s senior year begins. He is a closeted bisexual man in love with his best friend Sarah, who is dating his good friend Thom (whom he is also in love with). He doesn’t seem to be in love with his girlfriend Debbie at all. An idyllic summer spent third wheeling with Susan and Thom ends once school starts and a new guy is introduced at the morning assembly… Robert Mallory. 

Immediately, Robert gets under Bret’s skin. Bret remembers seeing Robert months before he moved to L.A., at a movie theater, but Robert’s consistent denial of this drives Bret crazy. Taking time off from the different guys at school he is secretly intimate with, he decides to follow Robert after school one day. Robert catches him in the act of tailing him and any chance they had at a friendship is ruined. From here on out, it’s a game of cat and mouse between the two. (Or maybe mouse and mouse?)

The first major OMG moment is the death of Matt (a consistently stoned hottie), one of Bret’s ‘intimate friends’. 

As Bret watches Robert ease his way into the various friend groups on campus, he begins to see a side of Robert that is only noticeable from a distance… he notices the silent calculations that Robert is constantly making as if Robert is devising some secret masterplan. It’s then that Robert begins taunting Bret, dropping hints that he knows about the relationship between Bret and Matt. It’s also then that Matt starts receiving mysterious phone calls and notices that someone has stolen his pet fish and rearranged his room. In a state of psychological anguish, he accuses Bret of being behind it, due to some ‘gay’ obsession with Matt. Soon after, Matt turns up dead. Missing for several days, then found dead and mutilated in his own backyard. 

Bret meets with Matt’s father and learns the horrid details of Matt’s death. This makes the outlines of what Bret may be dealing with become more real now. No one cares about Matt’s death enough to notice the pattern that is forming. News articles begin to appear, daily, about missing girls, missing pets, mysterious home break-ins with furniture being rearranged, and late-night attacks. The police eventually put together a profile for a killer they are calling The Trawler. There are hints that he may be connected to a roving group of Manson-esque murder hippies that are terrorizing LA.

Bret makes the decision to divide himself between a true, hidden Bret, and a false, public Bret. Public Bret will play the role of a model student and boyfriend, while private Bret investigates Robert Mallory, whom he believes to be The Trawler. Valium, Quaaludes, and marijuana form the wall between the real and fake Brets. (Imagine someone breaking into your home, and you pop a pill and hide in a closet, falling asleep, and just hoping they pass you by.) Cue an endless string of parties, conversations, car rides, class assignments, and missed calls from Debbie (and The Trawler) that Bret floats through.

Fast forward past more missing women, Bret following Robert Mallory through the streets of LA, Bret being followed by a mysterious van through the streets of LA, Bret being taunted by The Trawler, Bret meeting with Robert’s aunt and finding out about Robert’s dark past, Bret breaking into Robert’s second home, Bret sleeping with Debbie’s dad, and Bret’s numerous attempts at telling someone what may be happening with Robert and being called crazy, etc. 

Eventually, we reach the foggy climax. After Debbie goes missing, Bret is convinced that Susan is the Trawler’s next victim. Robert’s next victim. He decides to take matters into his own hands. That night, Susan and Thom are attacked at Susan’s home by a masked assailant. Susan bites the assailant and he runs out (but not before disfiguring Susan’s breast, and Thom’s leg). Robert comes to the rescue, getting them help, and then heads back to his apartment. Bret arrives at Robert’s apartment soon after and a fight ensues that leads to Robert jumping to his death. Bret is alive and tells a version of the story that exonerates himself, and there is no one to dispute it. 

It is only in the denouement that it is revealed that Bret was the attacker that night of Susan and Thom’s attempted killing… and this is where I started to come down off the story’s canna/lude/coke/valium high… We find out that Bret is Susan and Thom’s attacker after Susan recognizes the bite mark she left on her attacker’s arm, casually peeking out from Bret’s long sleeve Polo. He breaks her hand and threatens her, to keep her quiet. (It’s only years later that Bret finds out Susan immediately told Thom about what she saw on Bret’s arm).

Coupled with this jarring reveal, we are also told (through a letter written to the press) that The Trawler is neither Bret nor Robert. The Trawler is independent of both young men but is indeed a part of the cult roaming the hills of LA. They claim that Robert Mallory was ‘their God’, and the mutilated bodies were ’sacrifices’ given to ‘the God’. Then I just sat with the book closed and wondered what I had just read.

I went back and forth on whether I felt this deserved 4 or 5 stars (like my opinion matters LOL). What gives me doubt is the execution of the ending. As bulky of a book as THE SHARDS is, the writing was actually pretty easy to follow. It flowed frictionlessly from one page to the next. I didn’t even mind all the extraneous storylines because they flowed, and added flesh to the characters. However, the last few chapters ended in such an odd package of revelations and reveals that it almost seemed as if a different writer had tried to finish the story with Bret’s voice.

Now, I must also say, that after reading the book I did a lite Google search on Bret Easton Ellis, just to see what he’s up to today. Unsurprisingly, he seems to be exactly the man I’d expect him to be after growing up as a well-to-do SoCal private school kid (i.e., his book White, 2019). He has not escaped the haze of privilege and wealth, that tends to blind those with his upbringing, from the complex harsh multi-ethnic multi-cultural struggles of the world. I wasn’t disappointed though. Just confirmed. Only a privileged asshole could write so excellently about vanity, insecurity, and recreational pharmaceuticals. 

HIDDEN PICTURES by JASON REKULAK (REVIEW)

quickly: a recovering addict gets a new job babysitting a haunted five-year-old. (a young woman trying to live a sober life / a child with a questionable existence / homes that come with guest houses and hidden gardens / disturbed suburbian parents / physical and spiritual battles with sobriety / weird and quirky superstitious neighbors / wickedly beautiful artwork from the spiritual realm / gardeners who make you want to break rules)

not too shabby. not too complex either, honestly. the tone sits firmly in the mystery genre, for me. the ghosts in this story don’t scare or thrill me, but they don’t bore me either. stephen king is quoted on the back cover as saying “the language is straightforward”, and that is absolutely correct. not much poetry or soul to the writing, but it was a full story! it was compelling enough to pull me to the end, but not my favorite ending. it has the kind of ending that you find in most “B” level thrillers (which is no shade, i love b-movies). the ending is a resolution, but it doesn’t take my breath away.

★ ★ ★

more thoughts: SPOILERS!

Some personal context… after a reading sprint that began sometime in March, I spent the past few weeks with THE BOOKS OF JACOB. It is a tome of a book, 900+ pages, and the most time I’ve spent with a book in years. It was an interesting and detailed world to be in, but I couldn’t wait to get back to the thriller/mystery/horror genre, and HIDDEN PICTURES is my return. I read it in less than 24 hours. 

The artwork really pulled me in, and wasn’t as gimmicky as it could have been.

The story opens up with Mallory reflecting on a paid health study she participated in which involved her being blindfolded in front of a group of men. She was instructed to raise her hand if she felt eyes on her, testing her ability to sense the male gaze. She was insanely accurate, telling the instructor that she felt a buzz in her mind whenever she sensed looks. The instructor offers to do more research with her, but Mallory trades her phone for Oxy and the lady is unable to reach her.

After this, we are immediately thrown into the present where Mallory is now sober and has been for 18 months. She is preparing to interview for a babysitting job with The Maxwells, youngish parents living in an affluent suburban enclave. After an awkward and stressful interview that involves her pulling out a piss test to prove her commitment to sobriety, she is hired. Caroline, the Mom, says they believe in giving people second chances, but you learn fast that you can’t believe anything they say.

Soon enough, five-year-old Teddy has formed a close bond with Mallory. The creepy pictures he draws always seem to show an entity hanging around him that no one else can see (but Mallory can sense). Teddy’s mom brushes the pictures off and tells Mallory not to encourage him. After the quirky next-door neighbor tells Mallory about the ghost stories surrounding the guest house where she lives, she eventually convinces herself that her guest house is haunted and the ghost is speaking through Teddy. Half right.

Of course, her pursuit of this tightens the underwear of The Maxwells, and so she begins to investigate under the radar. She enlists the help of The Maxwells’ gardener whom she’s told that she was a local student (and not a recovering person being given a second chance to get her life on track). Fast forwarding past the awkwardness of living with a married couple whose marriage is a thin facade of happiness, the “hauntings”, the creepy photos with the Samura-like girl in them, Mallory trying to confront the super rationalist parents about the supernatural realm, and Mallory trying to make contact to the ghost by ouija board… eventually the ghost jumps into Mallory’s body while she is napping and causes her to draw all over the walls of The Maxwell’s pristine white walls.

The rest is a loud and gory climax with a small scoop of falling action on the side. The parents fire Mallory because of the “artwork”, attributing it to some sort of mental break caused by recovery, and they give her 48 hours to get out. Alex, the gardener, is told about her true background as a recovering addict (but still wants to help her). She miraculously solves the mystery at the last minute and proceeds to do the dumbest thing that characters can do in a mystery/thriller… confront the bad guys with no backup, collateral, witness, or weaponry. The Maxwells reveal their devilry… they are kidnappers who stole a little girl and made her disguise herself as a boy. The child’s real mother, whom Caroline Maxwell killed, is who has been haunting little Teddy.

Caroline Maxwell plans to kill Mallory by drug overdose, but she’s saved by Ted Maxwell who secretly hates his kidnapping murderess wife (but has done nothing but enable her). A delusional Ted is killed by Caroline, in the midst of some pipe dream of him running away to some foreign land with Mallory. A chase ensues, with Mallory running into the woods with Teddy and hiding in a tree. Just as Caroline has hunted them down, the spirit of Teddy’s dead mother possesses her, getting Teddy to kill Caroline with an arrowhead conveniently found earlier in the story. 

That’s how most elements of this story felt. Convenient. The end, while loud and gory, seemed staged. Like I could see the beginning from the end. All the little easter eggs stood out like they had billboards above them pointing out “CLUE HERE”, or “FORESHADOWING”. Yet, I still enjoyed it. Like I would an R.L. Fear Street book. Three stars, but a high three. 

ADDENDUM: seeing from other reviewers how this author's work includes, deceptively, various ideologies used to other and vilify trans children and their parents (which makes me think back to that errant Harry Potter reference). Unfortunate and gross. Knowing makes the work even cheaper than it already was. Keeping my same rating, which was written and determined before I found out. I will definitely be more critical in the future.

"I am not one to linger in the mirror—I am often disappointed in what I see in the glass...”

Tim McGregor, Eynhallow

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT by RILEY SAGER (REVIEW)

quickly: unresolved childhood grief leads to irrepressible ghosts in adulthood (grief and regret / friends and foes / backyard campouts / shaken suburbs / “don’t go chasin’ waterfalls…” / strangers in the woods / kisses kept secret / occult dinner parties / marriage and miscarriages / talking ghosts).

A quiet night in the summer heat turns into a lifelong nightmare for young Ethan Marsh. After his neighbor Billy disappears into thin air, the neighborhood is left traumatized, and Ethan is left wondering what he could’ve done differently for his weird, ghost-obsessed neighbor. Now 40 and moving back into the house where Billy disappeared, Ethan is starting to see things… shadows, messages, and warnings.

An enjoyable and easy read. Great for warm weather weekends. It was like Fear Street but for grown-ups… the highly emotional and angsty decisions of teenagers and adults, the blurred lines between the horrors of human nature and the supernatural, and the well-paced page-turning thrill of discovering what truth lies at the heart of the mystery. Looking forward to more Riley Sager.

★★★★

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by SHIRLEY JACKSON (REVIEW)

quickly: a young woman is consumed by an old haunted house awakened by a professor studying the paranormal (a thirty-something going through the emotional crises of thirty-somethings / an eccentric outcast college professor / dank old mansions hidden in the woods / stoic caretakers who are almost as old as hill house / open doors closing, closed doors opening / the mind wandering to dark and strange places).

this is a short and quick gothic horror tale with a 60’s emotional sensibility. that said, it had the feeling that what shirley jackson really wanted to write about hill house had been censored or underwritten so as to not offend ‘the general public’. maybe it is almost 30 years of horror movie watching under my belt, but i just couldn’t find the thrill and suspense in this novel. i could see this being a nice sunday after church mystery read. but… i don’t go to church, and i was intrigued but not thrilled.

★ ★ ★

more thoughts: SPOILERS!

Some personal context… I just finished The Vanishing Half, a drama about a set of twins. As always, I was eager to get back into the mystery/thriller/horror genre. I’m venturing out, looking for new writers who can write with the heart and soul that real horror requires. So far, Andy Davidson’s The Boatman’s Daughter has been my favorite horror-thriller writer I’ve read this year. The Hollow Kind was good as well.

Shirley Jackson was on several ‘must read’ horror lists. This was my first Shirley Jackson book, and I’ve wanted to read it ever since seeing The Haunting of Hill House series produced by Netflix. Now… I had prepared myself for the book to be different from the movie… but sheesh! It is two pages and a plot twist away from being night and day.

The story begins with Eleanor, and she is the spotlight we follow through the dark tale of Hill House. We meet her as she is having some kind of ‘life moment’… stealing a car half owned by her sister and running off to participate in some supernatural experiment in a secluded house by an unknown doctor. She is desperate to get away and be a part of somewhere other than where she has been.

Eleanor arrives first at the multi-leveled, multi-roomed,  multi-gardened Hill House, greeted by the old caretakers, The Dudleys, who make it clear that they go nowhere near the house after sundown. The other members of this adventurous gang arrive shortly after: Dr. Montague, the paranormal expert; Theodore, who like Eleanor, was selected because of their past history of psychic/supernatural occurrences; and Luke, heir to Hill House.

Everyone is affected by Hill House’s impressively dark aura, and the disturbances begin immediately. Doors acting in their own accordance, strange nightmares and daydreams, and doors knocking at night. Eleanor is the most affected by Hill House, sometimes seeming to be totally entranced. 

Amidst the nightly disturbances, a strange love triangle develops between Eleanor, Theo, and Luke. Eleanor is whom we have the most background information about, and it is clear that her subconscious, Hill House, or whatever other dark force, is playing on the years worth of guilt and trauma of taking care of a dying mother. Any home away from home, including Hill House, will do.

The disturbances increase after Dr. Montegue’s wife, Mrs. Montegue, arrives with her sidekick Arthur. Their 19th-century style calls to the spirit realm, result in messages from the beyond, seemingly directed toward Eleanor, sending her psyche further into the depths of Hill House’s shadows.

After Eleanor sleepwalks up the rickety railing of the library in the tower, putting herself in danger, Dr. Montague sends Eleanor home. But… as foreshadowed at the beginning of the story, Hill House never lets its prey leave. In a state, not herself at the time, Elanore puts the pedal to the metal and floors it into a tree on her way off the property. It’s only at the last moment that she realizes she had not been herself at that something else had been acting for her.

I hoped to like this story much more than I did. I’ve heard so much about her writing, and seen so many of my other favorite horror writers cite her. It’s also obvious to see how Shirley Jackson’s story of Hill House has created many tropes that we see in horror today. I don't even have to list them... (though Rose Red is one that comes to mind immediately).

I understand the time period and style of writing, and that wasn’t what I disliked. I think it was just a level of detail and poetry that I had expected and did not receive. The writing has the feeling that Kid’s Bop has to regular music. Still catchy, and has a groove, but the voice is for a general audience, and the true spirit of the lyrics have been censored.

I CRIED watching The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. I wish I had received even a quarter of that much emotion from this book. I’ll have to do some research on Shirley Jackson. I want to know more about the context of her work and its cultural impact. After, I also have “We Have Always Lived In The Castle”, which I am going to read soon.

A three for me for now, but I appreciate what it’s done for the culture of horror. I’m open to changing my mind on this one later though.

"Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you had to at least try to grow your own brain. Otherwise, you might as well be living on a reservation, worshiping a bunch of bogus gods."

Scott Westerfeld, Pretties

EYNHALLOW by TIM McGREGOR (REVIEW) 

quickly: a late 1700’s irish housewife has her humble island life disrupted by a strange and inimitable scientist from afar, dr. victor frankenstein: (anatomy as an art / unexpected arrivals and departures / empty graves and ocean caves / heartbreaking decision making  / ghosts are just faded memories / mysteries of midwifery / medical malpractice / overly tall people need love too / ogres, trolls, and monsters on the beach / sad sex with your drunk husband vs. empowering sex with a stranger / secrets in a locked room / stories of abandonment / sea salt and stone / telling your true love goodbye / true grief never dies / waiting on lost lovers by the sea).

Meet the overly tall, overly compassionate Agnes. Her father made her denounce her true love because he was poor. Then her evil stepmother orchestrated her marriage to an old man because ‘no one likes overly tall women’. That is how the young Agnes came to be Mrs. Tulloch, the island housewife of the drunkard idiot Mr. Tulloch, who spends his either time beating and berating Agnes, or trying to spoil her with more children.

Island life is hard. The wind blows cold, so Agnes keeps the hearth fire burning. Meals are often meager, but Agnes keeps the pot full (with four children and an oaf of a husband, mind you). She goes to church on Sunday, and she tends to her pregnant best friend Katie when she has the time. Her skill for keeping houses warm and fed (as well as being the only woman on the island not pregnant or elderly) makes her the prime candidate as a temporary cook for the strange new scientist conducting odd experiments on the island. One bowl of stew leads to another, and soon Mrs. Tulloch is entangled in the dark world of Dr. Frankenstein’s experiments.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Delightful!

This was such a DELIGHTFUL well-paced period-piece horror story, at only 174 pages, with overtones of romance, sci-fi, and mystery. It was part fable, part wormhole transporting me to a misty brackish island at a time and place far out of reach. Not to mention, the writing was full of charming 1700's-1800's slang. Agnes, our kind host, is warm and benevolent, reminiscent of the Beloved Piranesi. Unlike Piranesi however, her curtailment by men’s expectations will reach its limits. Her wrath will be the result of an irreversible change in her compassionate nature, and it will lead to irreversible changes to the island community itself.

THE BURNING GIRLS by C. J. TUDOR (REVIEW)

quickly: a woman of the cloth relocates to small-town England and uncovers a long-kept community secret. (single mom with a repressed past and a rebellious teen daughter / creepy blair witch stick dolls / ghostly apparitions / family secrets turning into community secrets / rich men controlling local government / a random spree killer).

quaint, quiet English towns are some of the most dangerous places on Earth. this is what The Burning Girls confirms in a story that feels like the UK version of a Fear Street novel. the chapters are short and quick, often ending with a cliffhanger. ‘good vs. evil’ and ‘nature vs. nurture’ are major motifs in this story, sometimes stereotypically so, sometimes uninspired. i wish there was more thrill and horror… with the lore behind what a ‘burning girl’ represents, there was the potential to go so much further. while i love the author’s tone and style, the substance lacked.

★ ★ ★

more thoughts: SPOILERS!

Some personal context… I picked this book out based on a search I did for ’theological horror’. I was trying to decide whether or not I was going to read the non-fiction book “Heathen: Religion and Race in American History”. As I’m already reading a non-fiction book on Indigenous American history, ”Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America”, and I just completed the lengthy “The Books of Jacob”, I was hesitant to read another lengthy non-fiction book.

My thought process was… I can soothe my horror itch and my religious history itch by reading a book that combined both. If the book was intriguing enough, then I’d move on to Heathen by Kathyrn. I found several books that fell into the theological horror genre, and ‘Burning Girl’s’ was a newer one, so I picked it. Sadly, it did not inspire me to reach for non-fiction theological history. While not bad, it didn’t capture what was interesting about the religious lore of Sussex England that the title and cover art so openly refer to.

The title is what truly caught my eye: THE BURNING GIRLS. That, paired with the promise of uncovering church mysteries, pulled me in.

The story opens with Reverend Jack, short for Jacqueline, who is being informed that she is being relocated to a distant Sussex community after an unfortunate occurrence at her church in Nottingham. Essentially, she wasn’t able to save an abused child from their parents and was partially blamed when the parents murdered the child. 

She moves to Chapel Croft with her 15-year-old daughter, a small village where everyone knows everyone, and her arrival is big news. Immediately, both mother and daughter have separate encounters with appearances of ‘burning girls’, ghostly apparitions who appear to be on fire, and missing bodily limbs. Reverend Jack is coincidentally informed that the creepy stick dolls everywhere are to commemorate the girls and families burned during religious wars back in Olde England. She’s also informed that seeing a ghost of a burning girl is a warning of impending danger.

As the story goes on, Revered Jack’s back story is unfurled. She comes from an abusive home with a psychotic spree-killing brother who is responsible for the death of her husband (who was also a pastor). Just before her move, she was informed that her brother was released from prison. While she thinks she is evading him by moving to Chapel Croft, unbeknownst to her, he is ruthlessly and methodically making his way to her and leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

All the characters are dealing with some form of ‘good vs. evil’ struggle, most evident in Reverend Jack’s brother, who seems to have a voice within that he compels him to do evil deeds. There are also several references to the great question of whether or not people can be born bad, and what it means to be bad vs. being a good person doing a bad thing. To be honest, the word count could’ve been better spent exploring the wild history of the burning girls. 

Anyways, fast forward past two girls who went missing long ago being discovered in a well, the dead body of a missing priest being found buried under the church, a devious teenage boy found living with the dead body of his mother, and that same boy plotting the killing of Revered Jack’s daughter simply to please his equally devious killer girlfriend. Oh yeah, I forgot, did I mention that randomly, in the background of the main events, Reverend Jack’s brother has been traveling the countryside on foot and killing anyone who crosses his path?

The story ends in the loud gory cacophony of noise and violence that most B-level thrillers tend to end in. The psycho-killer teens confront Revered Jack and her daughter in the church for the big climax, which results in Jack killing the teens, and the church being set on fire in the process. At the last moment, just before Reverend Jack is engulfed by the flames, her psycho-killer brother rescues her. The people he killed to get to her kind of fade into the background as if his character’s sole purpose was to represent the bad person who does a good thing (in contrast to Reverend Jack being the good person who does a bad thing).

The miasma of “Good and Evil” that this story exists in is muddier than it is inspiring. Too many angels and devils in this garden if you ask me. And again, the gem, the burning girls, barely get any page time! Three stars. Not horrible, but not anything I am compelled to recommend. That said, I’d still love to try THE CHALK MAN, by this author, and give her another chance.

PIRANESI by SUSANNA CLARKE (REVIEW)

quickly: a lonely but good-hearted soul discovers his only friend is not who he thought (marble walls and endless hallways / scientist magicians / kidnapping, lies, deceit / ancient forgotten wisdom / creative divinity / finding lost things / ornithomancy (divination by birds) / enemies kept close / reverence for the dead and their bones / the writing on the wall / the ocean and its tides / the wind and the clouds it carries / the forgotten sadness of the world).

A refreshing, delightful, and unique read that took me to a place far away from this world. This story is told through the journal entries of the beloved Piranesi, who spends his time fishing, collecting seaweed, and calculating the sea’s tides. You will come to know him for his effusive spiritual bond to the workings of the strange world he inhabits. He refers to himself as “the Beloved Child of the House”. In his 30’s, he has no wife, and knows of only one other person living in this world with him, who he refers to as “The Other”. There are thirteen more, deceased, but his kind offerings of food and conversation for them at their open-air resting places create life in their absence. He talks to the towering statues that line the walls of this World, and he talks to the birds who communicate things to him that he believes the House wants him to know. 

The writing is uncomplicated, well-paced, and well-structured. Combined with the story’s setting, a surreal earth-locked landscape, I found it to be a meditative and mysterious read. I kept thinking of the video game “Pandora’s Box (1999)”… a quietly unfolding puzzle of Hellenistic proportions. For a story that is so surreal and involves so many elements (fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and a teaspoon of crime), it was incredibly realistic and recognizable. Fantasy realism? This story has a mythic, fable-like quality that I can’t fully explain. It begins with a prophecy told to Piranesi by a flock of birds, and like any true prophecy, it immediately initiates changes in Piranesi’s world. Masterfully and subtly, there are contrasts between a real world full of sorrows and tragedies, and a quiet world where life’s forgotten ideas have become immortalized in statues… there’s the forgetting of oneself for another self as a consequence of being submersed in this ‘other’ world for too long… and also the processes of fate and prophecy playing out through hidden truths and sudden revelations from the subconscious. Like a forgotten fable, I hope to revisit this book sometime far in the future.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★