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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Feb 11, 2014 16:33:53 GMT
The Ghost Writer by John Harwood (Vintage; New Ed edition - 2005)
Viola Hatherley was a writer of ghost stories in the 1890s whose work lies forgotten until her great-grandson, as a young boy in Mawson, Australia, learns how to open the secret drawer in his mother's room. There he finds a manuscript, and from the moment his mother catches him in the act, Gerard Freeman's life is irrevocably changed. What is the invisible, ever-present threat from which his mother strives so obsessively to protect him? And why should stories written a century ago entwine themselves ever more closely around events in his own life?
Gerard's quest to unveil the mystery that shrouds his family, and his life, will lead him from Mawson to London, to a long-abandoned house and the terror of a ghost story come alive.
It's tricky to classify this novel as a ghost story or a psychological thriller; it certainly has elements of both. For me, who tends to favour short stories to novels when it comes to ghosts, the main draw was the inclusion of several of Viola's stories throughout the book - stories that begin more and more to mirror elements of Gerard's life, the mystery he suspects his mother had kept from him, and Gerard's relationship with his as yet unseen English penpal, Alice Jessel, the main light in his overshadowed life.
The stories Gerard finds are great, mixing pastiche with some originality of their own - my favourite takes the Reading Rooms of the British Library, in a clear nod to 'Casting the Runes', and turns them into a nightmarish fog-wreathed labyrinth - and a couple of them could easily be extracted and not look out of place in an anthology of Victorian chillers.
But, having been attracted by these ghostly documents, it was the framing story of Gerard and his eventual move from Australia to London to solve the puzzle he's stumbled upon that delivered the bigest chill. Quite a few reviews I've read have said that the end is a bit of a let-down, but it was as the end crept ever closer that I found myself setting the book aside late one night to continue with the next morning, since I was a bit too spooked to continue reading it at the wrong side of midnight.
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Post by dem on Feb 11, 2014 19:18:36 GMT
Good to hear from you, Lurkio, and many thanks for alerting us to this one. That will be another trip to the library then ....
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Post by Johnlprobert on Feb 12, 2014 11:38:53 GMT
I'll put a vote in for this one as well - I really liked it, and the climax is great. I can't really say any more as it would give too much away but I didn't think it was a let down at all.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Feb 12, 2014 15:25:37 GMT
I'll put a vote in for this one as well - I really liked it, and the climax is great. I can't really say any more as it would give too much away but I didn't think it was a let down at all. No, me neither. I didn't quite get where the disappointment some folk seemed to feel came from, though a fair few of these reviews came from readers who didn't understand the ending at all. I thought Harwood made it quite clear, myself. Also not going to say any more, apart from saying the atmosphere in those closing scenes was genuinely shiver-inducingly creepy. On the basis of this, I also read Harwood's 'The Seance' and 'The Asylum'. Both good, entertaining faux-Victorian mystery/melodramas, but with none of the eeriness of 'The Ghost Writer'. Though I'd still be inclined to keep an eye out for what he does next. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Feb 12, 2014 16:24:03 GMT
I'll put a vote in for this one as well - I really liked it, and the climax is great. I can't really say any more as it would give too much away but I didn't think it was a let down at all. No, me neither. I didn't quite get where the disappointment some folk seemed to feel came from, though a fair few of these reviews came from readers who didn't understand the ending at all. I thought Harwood made it quite clear, myself. Also not going to say any more, apart from saying the atmosphere in those closing scenes was genuinely shiver-inducingly creepy. On the basis of this, I also read Harwood's 'The Seance' and 'The Asylum'. Both good, entertaining faux-Victorian mystery/melodramas, but with none of the eeriness of 'The Ghost Writer'. Though I'd still be inclined to keep an eye out for what he does next. I've read The Ghost Writer - I liked it a lot, and wouldn't say I was "disappointed" by the ending but I probably enjoyed some of the individual stories more than the overall plot of the book. I've also read The Seance - I liked it, but not as much. I'm not really a fan of the gothic melodrama genre, but it was entertaining enough as a one-off, a bit outside my usual sort of read. I haven't read The Asylum - I thought about getting it, but it seemed to be more of the same, so I didn't. Maybe I'm just a teeny bit fickle. |
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Post by jamesdoig on Feb 12, 2014 20:48:48 GMT
On the basis of this, I also read Harwood's 'The Seance' and 'The Asylum'. Both good, entertaining faux-Victorian mystery/melodramas, but with none of the eeriness of 'The Ghost Writer'. Though I'd still be inclined to keep an eye out for what he does next. Haven't read The Asylum and must pick it up. The Ghost Writer was terrific - in fact I hunted John Harwood down and interviewed him for All Hallows years ago. I think at the time he was about to quit academia and take up writing full time, but he hasn't been too prolific. His mum was one of Australia's finest poets. In the interview he said that he and a friend had had the idea of seeking out forgotten ghost stories in Victorian periodicals - I don't think he'd heard of Hugh Lamb and Richard Dalby! |
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