I ran into some happy distractions right after I started reading Elizabeth Brundage's novel, but this is definitely a case when I was glad that I was compelled to slow down my reading pace a bit. To have rushed through this magnificently odd book would have been a crime.
Here's the lowdown: There's this couple who dies a tragic death in this certain house, leaving behind three orphan boys. Then there's a woman who, a few years later, dies violently in that same house, the only witness her three year old daughter.
I chose this book believing it to be a mystery. But it is not that.
Once I was fully engaged I began to believe I must be reading a ghost story. But it is not that.
What it is is undefinable, and nearly impossible to explain, so I'm not going to waste my time or yours going on about it.
Suffice it to say that not since I read Gillian Flynn's brilliantly evil Sharp Objects has a book affected me this way. What the novels share in common is a malevolence that is lyrical; that sense of being pulled, ever so gently, utterly willingly, into the maelstrom.
I know this review doesn't give too many details. You don't need them. You don't want them. You just need to read this.
Trust me.
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
March 2016
Book borrowed from the
