Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo
303 pages, Paperback
Published March, 2024 by Thomas & Mercer
Around the time that Del Toro’s amazing Pan’s Labyrinth was being discovered as a part of the Oscar season, there was a rush or a push to find Horror novels that connected to fairy tales. I remember agents in their manuscript wish lists asked for dark fairy tales constantly. Certainly, there are plenty of those novels if that is your thing from directly related takes like Sarah Pinborough’s Tales from the Kingdom Trilogy or modern retellings like Victor LaValle’s The Changeling. The former is a book that I would compare to Pelayo’s dark fairy tale and vivid Chicago gothic. These books are natural cousins.
I grew up one state over from Chicago but had family and friends in the city and spent much time there, so I enjoyed the setting. Chicago is a character in this book make no mistake, and as such you get both a gritty ground-level description of the city while learning some history about the city. The novel is connected to one of the city’s most tragic events the shipwreck of the SS Eastland.
Anna and Jennie live in an older house along the Chicago River, it is one of those old creaky houses that echo the past. “A house is alive, as we are alive. In many ways a house is always recording, and when ready it will recount to us images and sounds, maybe more of the secrets it holds. A house always watches, waits, and listens for its caretaker, but it also recognizes when a new tide is coming, and it will warn us.”
The relationship between the two sisters is deep but know that (without spoiling) it is complicated. This is a feature, not a bug. Anna is your main POV, although ever few chapters we get the point of view of the detectives working a murder case. This is an interesting choice in a first-person narrative.
The mystery involves a series of bodies being found in or around the Chicago River. The victims are in various forms of decay. Anna had a unique way of seeing the city, obsessed with the dark history and corners of a city that was once centered around the industry of slaughter.
Much of what makes Anna a compelling character is confirmed in the final acts, so if you want to know my non-spoiler thoughts. I think this is a great novel for fans of Chicago. Urban horror, modern fairy tales, and character. This is a very good novel, that didn’t fully win me over until the final act when parts I was unsure about ended up paying off nicely.
I want to be careful of hyperbolic over-the-top reviews because I very much enjoyed this novel, but it is not perfect. I was a bit confused by the choice of first-person when the POV shifts so often. That might be a writer problem, I don’t think many readers worry about who or why the story is being told that way. I was engaged enough with the story I forgot all that stuff. I understood the choice in the final and thought the pay off was worth it.
So, if you have read it and want my thoughts… here-be spoilers as the reason I dug it is mostly in the details of execution. I am serious about SPOILERS…
The best elements of this novel certainly involve spoilers, and yes there were moments where I thought this book lost me. There were 10 or 15 pages when I was confused about what exactly was happening. There is a confusing POV shift in the final act when Anna’s sanity and grip on reality is tested. The good news is I stuck it out. The setup and pay-off worked for this reader.
What makes Forgotten Sisters special is the blending of modern and historical. CP works with a foundation for this ghost story on two tracks. The Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid on one track and on the other the historical Tragedy of the SS Eastland, a ship that crashed in the Chicago River killing 800 people. A ghost story inspired by two sisters who died on the ship, this novel is about a haunting, but the ending works because the twist that Anna’s sanity and break from reality was in front of us the whole time. The tragic thing is Anna lost her sister, and the reason she was afraid the leave the house, the reason her sister did want her to leave is the haunting couldn’t follow her.
“Can't you finally understand? Can't you finally see that it's that city will not let you leave? You are the steel in the skyscrapers. You are the cobblestones hidden beneath the asphalt-covered streets you are the Chicago River.”
The fairy tale, gothic and crime elements are the building blocks but the final act is when the novel becomes a modern horror novel. The twist is heartbreaking the nightmare of the faces in the water, the bodies in the river…truth is Anna is alone. Great reveal.
“I want to tell her about my nightmare last night and the waking terror I experienced. I suppose they were both nightmares, seeing those faces in the river and the siren in my room, who seemed so real.”
Cena Pelayo is an author now officially on my radar. Forgotten Sisters is a wonderfully structured genre-blending novel. Big thumbs up.
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