“All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Eric Ross is on the run from a mysterious past with his two daughters in tow. Having left his wife, his house, his whole life behind in Maryland, he’s desperate for money–it’s not easy to find steady, safe work when you can’t provide references, you can’t stay in one place for long, and you’re paranoid that your past is creeping back up on you.
When he comes across the strange ad for the Masson House in Degener, Texas, Eric thinks they may have finally caught a lucky break. The Masson property, notorious for being one of the most haunted places in Texas, needs a caretaker of sorts. The owner is looking for proof of paranormal activity. All they need to do is stay in the house and keep a detailed record of everything that happens there. Provided the house’s horrors don’t drive them all mad, like the caretakers before them.
The job calls to Eric, not just because there’s a huge payout if they can make it through, but because he wants to explore the secrets of the spite house. If it is indeed haunted, maybe it’ll help him understand the uncanny power that clings to his family, driving them from town to town, making them afraid to stop running.”
Popular culture has taught me over the years, that at some time in my life I will probably have the opportunity to stay overnight in a haunted house – to either win a bet or inherit a spooky shanty from a long-lost uncle.
In ‘The Spite House’, Eric stays in a reportedly haunted house, so he and his family can get back on their feet financially and stop travelling for awhile. The owner only asks that he document any strange happenings that occur.
I liked the writing style, and the ending of the book left me with an ominous feeling, which was nice. There are still a lot of unanswered questions by the end of the novel – so if you like your creepy fiction wrapped up nicely, you might be a bit unsettled.
I would have liked some more answers on how different characters in this story seemed to be able to come back from the dead. There’s talk of curses and the house obviously had more to say. I’d read another story around the family background. There also seemed a lot of set up around the creepy orphanage, that didn’t quite pay off.
A solid spooky house story, and I’d definitely read more from Compton.
“In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, 14-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number that Tom prank-called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Mirror Forest. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear . . .
The cover of this book is amazing, and was totally the reason why I bought a copy – such cool 80s/90s vibes! Sadly, I think it was the best part of the book.
Initially I was fully on board. A bizarre and brutal disappearance in the first few chapters, geared the book up to be deliciously dark and supernatural. The cover was giving me fairly traditional haunted house vibes, and Nesbo is an established crime writer..
The story starts off normally enough, but then descends into a fever dream landscape. I do love when books go off the wall a little, but this read too much like a young-adult novel trying to channel ‘Twin Peaks’ energy without ever quite getting there.
The first 2/3rds of the book still had me intrigued, but the lack of solid direction and unlikable main character had me skimming the final third.
I wanted this to be a knockout, but sadly the cover art was the only real hook.
What you should read instead:
“Johnny Truant wild and troubled sometime employee in a LA tattoo parlour, finds a notebook kept by Zampano, a reclusive old man found dead in a cluttered apartment. Herein is the heavily annotated story of the Navidson Report.
Will Navidson, a photojournalist, and his family move into a new house. What happens next is recorded on videotapes and in interviews. Now the Navidsons are household names. Zampano, writing on loose sheets, stained napkins, crammed notebooks, has compiled what must be the definitive work on the events on Ash Tree Lane.
But Johnny Truant has never heard of the Navidson Record. Nor has anyone else he knows. And the more he reads about Will Navidson’s house, the more frightened he becomes. Paranoia besets him. The worst part is that he can’t just dismiss the notebook as the ramblings of a crazy old man. He’s starting to notice things changing around him …”
This book is a trip, that’s for sure! Clever, confusing, spooky and a chunky beast at over 660 pages – though due to the formatting (which I think is in itself part of the story) about 130 pages are ‘exhibits’ and appendix add-ons that you can flip back and forth to check out.
While I’m not a lover of footnotes generally, this book tells half the story in footnote format. We read about the in-depth and academic study of what happened in the Navidson house and to the family, penned by Zampano – and also the notes of Johnny Truant as he pieces it all together.
I found the main story of the Navidson house to be really interesting. I got sick of the ramblings of Johnny quite quickly though, and ended up scanning these for links back to the house story. A lot of the references and footnotes are also highly technical or rambly, and can be breezed through without (in my opinion) losing any of the through-plot.
I’ve been wanting to pick this book up for many years, and feel an achievement ticking it off the list. As always, I would have liked some more answers to some of the supernatural goings-on, but sometimes the unknowable is what sticks with you long after you put the book down.
