Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
- 384 pages, Hardcover
- Expected publication June 25, 2024 by Del Rey
I when I was young Stephen King, Robert McCammon, and Clive Barker were like seasonal horror guarantees. You know that regularly you were going to get an effective horror novel or collection. In the modern horror scene when there are mainstream and indie presses there are so many writers active that there is no shortage of horror. Every time Josh Malerman releases a book I feel like it carries more weight. Like a seasonal event, Guaranteed quality, and as Josh Malerman’s catalog gets deeper we are seeing him start to take some daring risks.
This novel is a bold experiment and wow. Josh Malerman came onto the scene with the powerful debut of Birdbox. Long before Sandra Bullock was in the movie and turned into a million memes the horror community had been aware of the power that Malerman brings to his work. I have had the chance to interview Josh about Malorie the sequel to Birdbox and he returned to talk about His novella collection Goblin.
Listen to the Malorie interview
We have seen Malerman take big swings like Pearl a bizarro concept that explained on paper just doesn’t sound like it could possibly work and yet it does. I read Incidents Around the House knowing only the title and I knew Malerman had been followed by documentary crew when he wrote this novel. Looking at this title I thought it was a haunted house novel. It is so much more than that.
I love a haunted house novel, but like the genre in general it is hard to break new ground at this point. If you would like to know without spoilers if this novel works, in my opinion, it is one of the creepiest horror novels in some time. It will be a really intense experience for young parents who place themselves in the character's shoes. Using a unique prose point of view the novel becomes pretty much experimental. As I got a couple of chapters in I wondered how long Malerman could keep it up and the answer is to the fucking end.
If you follow my reviews you probably know that I am not a huge fan of first person. It limits the novel to one point of view, or voice, and often authors cheat to get around the limitations of the form. Writing novels in the form of letters for example leads to cheating, like found footage movies that unnaturally do things like the camera left on in a room while a private conversation goes on.
Stephen King is good at not cheating first person. One of the best examples is Delores Claiborne or a more fitting is his recent Hard Case Crime novel Later. The first-person narrator of Later grows up as the book unfolds and the writing gets stronger as he does. Incidents Around the House is told from the point of view of Bela a young child and Malerman never cheats in close to four hundred pages. It is a writing magic trick, but if you can’t handle the child-like prose without quotation marks you might not enjoy this. So grammar OCD folks might want to avoid it, people who don’t like being creeped out should really avoid it because this book is a real deal unsettling affair.
OK, I am coming close to spoilers so this is the point where you open another tab on your browser pre-order the book, and or request your library get it. Come back in a couple of months when you have read it so we can talk about it. So SPOILER warning.
IATH is the story of Bela, her Mommy, Daddo, and Other Mommy. Who is Other Mommy? She used to just watch Bela from the closet but she is her special friend who no one else saw – at first.
“She used to come only at night, Then sometimes during the day. The first time I saw her in the daylight I hid. I think she is getting close. Even though she is already in the house. Even though she sits next to me on my bed. Closer. That’s the word I think of.”
All horror requires buy-in, you have to imagine being Bela, or her mom or Daddo for this story to creep you out but Malerman using Bela’s voice puts you into childlike fear constantly. Other Mommy wants a simple thing, to be let into her heart.
The point where a lesser author would have cheated in the family drama that plays out between Mom and Dad. Bela is witness to an affair, fighting etc, and that is where cheating would have been easy but we only get Bela’s POV, an adult reading this novel knows better than her but Malerman trusts the audience. See how he does it.
“Mommy and Daddo look at each other but neither laugh. I’m thinking of how Mommy told Daddo she slept at Marsha’s house but she told me Marsha slept at her brothers.”
Damn, that is storytelling, and Malerman telling this story through the point of view of the child is straight-up genius because really who could get closer to the fear in this story than the child at the heart of it. The adult horror of not feeling like you can protect your child is dripping off every page. Other Mommy follows them wherever they go, their house is not haunted their child is haunted.
The solution presents Bela’s arc as the narrator. I would say if it works or not but a character tells the family.
“The Thing in your house is attracted to Bela’s innocence. We have to take that innocence away.”
Incidents Around the House is a horror masterpiece, a daring experiment in creating the creepiest possible immersive prose. If you let Bela and this story into your heart you will be biting your nails in fear that Other Mommy is in there with you.
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