 Normal is, of course, a relative concept. One of the more chilling realizations in the novel is just how insidious the idea of normal can be, and how far people will go in order to achieve it—or at least the appearance of it. A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher ASIN : B09ZQ6SJY9 Publisher : Titan Books (28 Mar. 2023) Language : English A Horror Fiction Review by Christina Ladd Entomophobes beware: this book will give you the heebie-jeebies. Yes, I chose that word with deliberate care: you will feel dread, you will feel disgust, but mostly you will have a feeling that seems, on the surface, to be slightly absurd and embarrassing but that will remain an indelible, whole-body revulsion nonetheless. Is it a bit silly to be afraid of—just say, for random example—ladybugs? Probably! Will feel the irrepressible urge to brush a horde of imagined little crawlers off you? Also probably! I certainly did. I have a phobia of insects, and T. Kingfisher’s newest horror novel A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher slowly but relentlessly played on that fear—much to my delight. Regularly reading horror can leave you numb to horror. Kingfisher doesn’t let that happen. That being said, I wasn’t lights-on noise-flinching scared with the book in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. For one, a fly swatter would have been more appropriate, and for two, it’s not that type of scary. Kingfisher’s other novels, Hollow Places especially, had more of a cosmic dread vibe, and A House With Good Bones continues that trend, albeit with a more down-to-earth approach. The novel begins as our heroine Sam temporarily moves home. This is not because of dire happenings but for the simple reason that a job has fallen through. Bumming around the house, which her mother inherited from the spiteful and not-much-missed matriarch known as Gran Mae, gives Sam plenty of time to idle around and wonder whether her mother, normally a charmingly neurotic woman, has crossed the line into genuine paranoia. Strange behavior gives way gradually to strange happenings, and combines well with an equally steady transition into isolation. Kingfisher refuses to rely on the old isolation tropes that can make horror so predictable. The internet and cell coverage may be next-to-nonexistent, but it’s more inconvenient than anything else. Certainly the plot doesn’t hinge on it, for which I am deeply grateful. Instead, Sam just…drives to where there’s better coverage. Like anyone would. Kingfisher strikes me as a deeply sensible person, and I’m so glad it comes through in her writing, because I really hate hysterics in horror. Yes, anyone can get overwhelmed or panic, but most people would be surprised at what they can get through when they have no other choice. The trick there is to make sure characters really don’t have another choice, and Kingfisher very effectively spends the first half of the book eliminating Sam’s alternatives before unleashing the full force of the horror, both supernatural and heartbreakingly mundane. And as the author, so too the protagonist: Sam goes about handling crises and investigating possible explanations with stubborn practicality, eliminating impossibilities until she’s left with truths that are highly improbable indeed. As with every Kingfisher protagonist, Sam tends toward the sensible, even if she does have several over-the-top (and pretty funny) reactions to the sudden presence of her mother’s handyman. She’s an archaeoentomologist, a profession that’s very literally grounded: she spends her time examining dead bugs at archeological sites to understand more about ancient life and culture. A surprisingly applicable set of skills, as it turns out, because there are several infestations she’s going to have to deal with. I’ve already mentioned the bugs; the other infestation is history. In a more immediate sense it’s a ghost, a haunting, but in the usual way of ghosts there’s more to discover and more at stake than a single entity or a single grudge. Generational trauma has become a topic of interest in horror and SFF more recently, and Kingfisher does a great job ensuring that it’s not just an abstraction. All of the characters have a nuanced and affecting relationship to the web of family ties that binds them, and to the region in which they live, the rural American south. I might have liked to see more detail about the family involvement with Thelemic practices, if only because I know almost nothing about it, and there was a lot of fun (and by fun, I mean creepy) potential to be explored. However, it’s clear that Kingfisher made a deliberate choice to leave it in the background. Her narrative is ultimately not about self-aggrandizing secret societies, but about individuals who hurt each other in such intimate ways. Kingfisher gives us a nuanced portrait of evil not as a force but as a choice, or rather, as a series of choices made over and over again. It’s this deliberate action that cements Gran Mae as the villain, not any kind of arbitrary ritual or accident of birth. Evil in A House with Good Bones is comprehensible and even banal—but not ubiquitous. This is specifically not about how small towns are cesspools of hate, and equally not about how rural areas are full of inbred racist cannibals. Sure, Lammergeier Lane might be home to paranoid gub’mint-hating shut-in Mr. Pressley, but even he has a positive role to play. Besides, there’s also Gail, a wildlife rehabber who particularly tends to injured vultures, and a collection of other neighbors who are decent and largely normal. Normal is, of course, a relative concept. One of the more chilling realizations in the novel is just how insidious the idea of normal can be, and how far people will go in order to achieve it—or at least the appearance of it. So what’s worse, ghosts and bugs, or suffocating conformity? Porque no los dos? asks Kingfisher. She doesn’t skimp on the scares, that’s for sure, working hard to make sure you’re afraid of both extremes by the time you reach the viscerally awful climax. It’s—just--so upsetting. It’s the kind of revulsion you feel first in the back of your throat and at the back of your neck, and only then does it radiate outward to make you want to gag or shudder. And it’s all of that without being gory, which is impressive. Kingfisher never goes for tropes if she can make it weird instead. If A House with Good Bones is then result, then three cheers for weird. A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES |
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