 The horror of dementia is explored in slow moving Swedish novel Amazon’s by-line for The Home is “a brilliantly creepy novel about possession, friendship and loss: good characters, clever story, plenty of scares – admit yourself to The Home now” (according to John Ajvide Lindqvist) is an enticing one, from an author who is making a name for himself across Scandinavia and has been hyped as one of the next big things in the horror world. In 2018 Blood Cruise sailed into translation, with much fanfare, but I found it rather underwhelming and I am not sure whether it made any impact in the international horror world. However, it’s worth noting that Swedish author Mats Strandberg, also co-wrote the bestselling YA supernatural fantasy trilogy Engelsfor which although it’s relatively unknown in the UK is an excellent read and it’s easy to see why it’s popular in the Nordic countries. Successfully writing for adults and a YA audience is not easy, so Strandberg needs to be applauded for his range. The Home is a different beast from Blood Cruise, and it is great to see the author produce a follow-up which is miles apart from its predecessor. Although this book will not be to all tastes, for the most it kept my attention and I was invested in how events were going to pan out, but I am not certain the pay-off was genuinely worth the wait. Why will The Home not be to all tastes? This is a big question and answering it revolves around the pacing and setting of the novel. The primary location is a care home for the elderly suffering from dementia and the novel pulls no punches in making clear this is the final pitstop for those who are residents there. It was very realistically presented; perhaps too grim with the golden oldies regularly pissing and shitting themselves, whilst struggling to cope with day to day life without assistance. As the story involves the nursing staff, the long night shifts and the loneliness of the geriatrics lost in their memories, combine all these factors together it made a very depressing read which provided little respite from the fog of dementia. Whether readers who are after a horror novel want this realistic but painful stuff rammed down their throats is open to question and many will judge the success of this novel in how they take to this level of realism. Although The Home was only 322-pages it felt much longer, and it took an age (over half the novel) for anything supernatural to happen. Unless you have an interest in the Swedish care home system, I suspect many readers will have given up by the midway point and not experience the rather uninspiring spooky stuff. When the novel opens 72-year-old Monika is about to be committed (against her wishes) to Pineshade care home by her son Joel. Seventy-two is very young to develop dementia but Joel is struggling to cope with his mother wandering off in the middle of the night and has a whole host of other problems. The story is partially told from Joel’s point of view, who feels guilty about committing his mother, but has many personal problems of his own which are key to the plot. Joel was not the most likable or sympathetic of characters, and like everybody else in the book he was miserable almost all the time, which was in tune with an overall mood which was very downbeat. The novel is also seen from the point of view of Nina who works in the Pineshade care home and lives a quiet life with a distant teenage son and is in a marriage which lacks spark. Twenty years earlier she and Joel were best friends and after leaving school hoped for a successful career in the music business. Some of The Home concerns their reacquaintance and the reason for their rift two decades earlier, all of this was very underwhelming and there was zero spark between the two characters who are brought closer together when Monika’s health worsens. Interestingly, there was also a third person narrative which allowed part of the story to be told from Pineshade, which took in both other staff, the residents, and their daily trials with their illnesses. This was a plus point as it gave the reader a break from both Joel and Nina. What of the horror element of the novel? As I have already said zero happens in the first half and things develop at a very slow pace in the second. If you are after head-spinning Exorcist style possession action it is not that kind of novel, it was very subdued, loaded with ambiguity with a few vaguely unsettling scenes. I enjoyed the second half of the book much more than the first, but felt it took too long getting there and many readers will find this frustrating and will have given up on Monika by the time things begin to heat up. I am sure The Home will have its fans but plenty of others will have their patience tested by too many descriptions of old people eating soup, sagging breasts, the smell of shit in the air, and nappies being changed at the expense of serious scares. Its cause was not helped by the fact that both Nina and Joel were incredibly dull characters who lived completely unfulfilled lives and there was nothing positive for the reader to latch onto. When the supernatural element entered the story, it was little too late. Perhaps something was lost in translation? Tony Jones  Once inseparable, Joel and Nina haven't spoken in twenty years. When Joel's mother Monika develops dementia, he has no choice but to return to his home town. Monika needs specialist care, and that means Pineshade - which also means Joel is going to have to deal with his one-time best friend, for Nina works there. It's not long before Monika's health deteriorates - she starts having violent, terrifying outbursts, and worse, she appears to know things she couldn't possibly know. It's almost as if she isn't herself any more . . . but of course, that's true of most of the residents at Pineshade. Only Nina and Joel know Monika well enough to see the signs; only by working together can they try to find answers to the inexplicable . . . The Home is an eerie story about love, friendship and the greatest fear of all: losing control of ourselves . . .   the heart and soul of horror fiction reviewsComments are closed.
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