Book Review: GHOST HOUSE

Title: Ghost House

Author: Sara Connell
Publisher: Muse Literary
Pages: 143
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

The house that sculptor Caitlin and her currently unemployed school teacher husband John are considering buying is haunted by a ghost in the titular story, Ghost House. It is one of the selling points of the house. Caitlin isn't convinced but John insists that the ghost is a benign presence. They move in and John won't believe her, that the ghost isn't benign at all. Soon Caitlin will learn how right she is. But will it be too late for her?

The author begins with a bang. The titular story, skillfully juggles the themes of art, motherhood and unrequited desires, and is impactful.

Les Grenouilles (the Frogs, in French) is hard to summarise. It's about a group of school girls, one of whom develops a mutation that prevents her growth and requires surgery. Her friends, including the unnamed narrator, are convinced that frogs' blood will heal her. This story combines the fear of disease with the hope brought on by miracle cures and the hold that religions and psychotropic drugs can have on humans.

Terroir is about a girl's feelings of terror towards her sense of her own body and sex, as also the sense of terror generated among women by the beauty and fitness industries. Terroir is actually defined as the complete natural environment of a wine, including factors such as soil, topography and climate. But, in English, it made sense as the terror generated in an environment that thrives on hounding women to care more than necessary about their physical appearance, thriving on the creation of fear around false imperfections.

In Girls, the narrator was an unusual one. A neon poster outside a brothel, one that serves as its mascot and pulls in the customers, addresses us. This one is about the fear that respectable society feels towards the sex industry.

Marionettes was another story I liked. Kate, on the verge of an engagement with boyfriend, Dan, expects to be proposed to while on holiday in Prague. Instead, her childhood fear relating to marionettes is revived until it ends with the worst outcome for her.

In Tarifa, we read about a horrific incident in the life of the unnamed mother of our unnamed narrator. As a young girl, the unnamed mother and her two friends, while on the road between Marbella and Tarifa in Spain, are propositioned and threatened at knifepoint. I was impressed with this one too. This story is to do with the fear of sexual assault.

Night Sky is a little vague. Ned's girlfriend, Joyce, a talented, atheistic artist with a scientific bent of mind, is increasingly taken with a lot of New Age things. When she vanishes, the residents of the trailer park where she lived begin to believe that she has been abducted by aliens. Will Ned find the answers he seeks?

Powell's Priests is about a people who overlook the sins of the priests because of the honey they bring them. It is the shortest story in this book, a little over a page. 

In One More, a woman who has dreams about impending disasters, realises that all things destructive are named after women. She feels that her dreams have caused her to be shunned by people, as if I were a ghost.

In Salad, the narrator, stuck home due to a medical condition, becomes obsessed with a famous actress. This story takes a deliciously creepy turn towards the end.

In Unending Day, the unnamed narrator has lost her promotion after calling a colleague an expletive. The boss forces her to sign up for therapy, but the therapist, it appears, won't let her leave.

Not My Body is a poem.

I had been expecting more of a paranormal vibe. These stories were more about women and girls hounded and, in some cases, doing the hounding themselves. A few of the stories could have improved with better punctuation. I liked this author's writing style and the stories themselves. 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)