BOOK REVIEW: THE HAUNTING OF LAS LÁGRIMAS

BOOK REVIEW: THE HAUNTING OF LAS LÁGRIMAS BY W.M. CLEESE

14/1/2022

Head to Argentina 1913 for a slow-burning supernatural tale

The Haunting of Las Lágrimas spirits us back to Argentina, 1913, and has been compared to both Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions and the work of Daphne du Maurier. If you are a fan of slow, brooding, gothic in style chillers then you will probably enjoy this novel, if you are after jump scares or darker horror then this may not be the book to rock your boat. Its strengths were its fantastic atmosphere, incredible sense of time and place and strong lead character rather than its supernatural angle. On the downside, for many readers (including myself) not enough happened and the creeping slow build-up of atmosphere and threat never truly paid off and at no stage in the narrative did I ever fear for the life of the totally isolated central character.

Why did I not fret for the engaging and spunky star Ursula Kelp? The main reason was the simple fact that the way the story is framed was a genuine tension killer. It starts directly after the events of the book have concluded and Ursula, probably waiting to return to the UK, starts to write about what happened to her when she became head gardener at the huge (and very remote) Las Lágrimas estate. Right from the kick-off the reader is aware the main character survives which for some readers could be seen as rather too obvious, however, this narrative style of writing letters or journals is a popular literary device in modern Gothic fiction.

In the early stages of proceedings, the young (and very independent for 1913) woman leaves a secure but undemanding gardening job to travel deep into the Pampas, the vast empty grasslands, where the estate is situated. She is vaguely aware that this is a job that no male gardener wants and she is given the opportunity because there is nobody else and the manager of the estate is desperate. The property is rumoured to be cursed and the owners have not lived there for many years, but will soon be returning, and it is her task to whip the overgrown estate into shape before ‘The Don’ and his family eventually appear. However, the estate is in a horrible state and even though she has the title of ‘head’ gardener the locals who are her assistants are uncooperative and do not like taking orders from a woman. Even though she speaks good Spanish, there are other language difficulties as the locals speak a native tongue, all of which adds to her isolation.

The story makes a great job of expressing how remote Las Lágrimas is, as it takes Ursula days to arrive there, no welcoming party awaits her, and she is shocked to discover that she can only bathe twice a week without the modern conveniences she is used to. She has no friends, hardly anybody will talk with her and if she is friendly to the skeleton staff is treated with suspicion. All of this adds to her woes, which are made worse by the fact that the wind never stops blowing and she hears whispers of curses and lingering evil from when the house was last inhabited. The horrendous garden, and her failure to manage it, parallels her dwindling spirits as the progress she makes is beset with hitches and problems. The reader quickly realises why this position is tricky to fill and nobody lasts more than a few months.

Ursula Kelp was an engaging central character and readers will tap into her excitement and hope as she embarks upon her new job, hoping to prove that being a woman is not a hinderance to succeeding in such a job, but the garden is an untameable wilderness which crushes her spirits, with the hostile and secretive staff making things worse. For a nearly 400-page book far too much time was spent gardening which quickly became repetitive and I felt that more time was spent on the gardens than on the supernatural element of the story which bubbled in the background. To be frank, it was too far back in the narrative and really needed something more substantial that doors slamming, footsteps on empty gravel paths or frenzied chop of an axe from the encroaching forest when no one is there to get the pulse racing. All this was rather subdued and although the disturbances increase it just was not enough to catch the attention or provide ever the most basic of scares.

I appreciate that novels written in the Gothic style do not reply upon particularly direct or violent horrors, but the malevolent force which lurks in the trees watching and waiting for Ursula which awakens was rather underwhelming and got slightly lost in the overgrown shrubbery and grass the gardener was continually at odds with. The Haunting of Las Lágrimas could also have done with some other major characters, but because of the first-person narrative, the story sticks with Ursula and the estate manager Moyano is the only other person featured in any detail. The Don and his family appear late in the book and perhaps if they had been introduced earlier the story might have been widened slightly further.

The Haunting of Las Lágrimas will be popular with a certain type of reader and may well prove to be a success beyond the horror market as it taps into historical thriller territory with a convincing feminist edge. The setting, beautifully described landscapes and central character were also strengths, but it was hindered by its slow pace, lack of action, and underwhelming supernatural storyline.

Tony Jones

An atmospheric Gothic ghost story, where The Silent Companions meets Daphne du Maurier in South America.
"A phantasmagoric mixture of M. R. James, The Shining and The Turn of the Screw set among the otherworldly Argentinian Pampas." - EDWARD PARNELL, author of Ghostland

Winter 1913.

Ursula Kelp, a young English gardener, has come to Argentina to restore the gardens of Las Lágrimas. The long-abandoned estate lies deep in the Pampas, the vast empty grasslands of South America where the wind blows without end.

Despite warnings from the locals of terrible things that once happened there and the evil that lingers, Ursula sets out to her new post full of hope.

Yet when she arrives, all is not as promised. The garden is an untameable wilderness, the staff hostile.

Setting to work, Ursula is disturbed by the crunch of footsteps on empty gravel paths, while from the nearby forest comes the frenzied chop of an axe when no one is there. But it is only as she unlocks the secrets of the place that Ursula comes to understand the true horror she is facing.

For lurking in the trees – watching her, waiting for her – is a malevolent force that wants Las Lágrimas for itself.