In search of Gothics.
And making progress, despite blurbs that lie.
I have an hour or so before I need to head into work for the day, so I picked up the book I’m reading, and didn’t even make it a PAGE before I had to put it down because it is STRESSING ME TF OUT.
So here I am, typing at you.
Current Read
The Whispering House, by Elizabeth Brooks
Tin House, 2021
Mexican Gothic is one of the only books I’ve read in quite a long time—I’m including the Before Times here, even, as I’ve been in a truly legendary Reading Slump for… well, yikes, over two years now??—that held me in that delightful CAN’T PUT IT DOWN way. So I’ve been reading more Gothics and trying, trying, trying to recapture that feeling.
Or at least, I’ve been reading books that are marketed as Gothics (more on that in a bit).
Anyway, The Whispering House is about Freya, who is mourning the loss of her sister, Stella, who died by suicide five years ago. While at a wedding near the beach where Stella’s body was found, Freya gets loaded and sneaks into the extremely off-limits house on the event grounds. And in there, she sees a portrait hanging on the wall… that depicts her sister.
One thing leads to another, and she ends up getting to know—and then living with—the residents of Byrne Hall, and… as I said, it’s gotten stressful. I’m almost halfway through, and she’s now romantically involved with Cory, the son of the household, and the dude is like EIGHT BILLION RED FLAGS PERSONIFIED and I HATE HIM and basically I’m just waiting for him to lock her up in the attic or something.
Here’s an example:
We stood side by side, contemplating Lady Caroline, and this time when he squeezed my hand I knew it was deliberate. It felt wrong—being so happy, I mean, in the wake of such a sad exchange—but I couldn’t help it. I’d have squeezed his hand in reply if I could, but my fingers were trapped inside his, and I couldn’t so much as wiggle my thumb.
Like, NOPE. Go away Cory, I want to throw you down a well.
Two Other Recent Reads
The Sanatorium, by Sarah Pearse
Viking, 2021
Despite the A.J. Finn blurb prominently displayed on the cover, this… is not a Gothic?
(Or, in my opinion, particularly thrilling, but your mileage may absolutely vary on that front.)
(And I know that old A.J. is not exactly a reliable source, but as IT’S RIGHT THERE ON THE FRONT COVER, I feel that it was fair for me to assume that if the publisher slapped it in such a eye-catching location, it wouldn’t be a GIANT LIE, but here we are.)
Anyway, once I got past the GIANT LIE, it was… fine?
A readable-if-forgettable murder mystery?
If I wrote blurbs, mine would say: Well, I guess I didn’t entirely hate it.
***
Oh, right, I got so mad about the blurb all over again that I never actually told you what it was about. Murder mystery starring a traumatized female cop, set in a hotel where everyone gets snowed in and then people start getting picked off.
Like I said, it’s FINE, but really it just made me want to re-read Anne Holt’s 1222, which has basically the same premise. If you’ve got a favorite murder mystery set in a hotel—preferably snowbound—I’m all ears. Spending what looks to be a grody, hot summer reading books about people freezing their butts off and trying not to get murdered sounds weirdly soothing at the moment.
The Stranger Diaries, by Elly Griffiths
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019
We read this one for our most recent Adult Book Club meeting at the library, and it went over pretty well with everyone. Also not a Gothic, but Gothic-adjacent—and DIDN’T CLAIM TO BE A GOTHIC ON THE FRONT COVER, so nice job, HMH.
(That said, it ALSO has an A.J. Finn blurb on the front?? I can’t escape this dude.)
This one is about Clare, a specialist in Gothic lit and high school English teacher, who becomes a person of interest in her colleague’s murder investigation. (Her colleague was murdered, I mean. Her colleague is not running said investigation.) Anyway, the murderer leaves a note related to Clare’s research at the scene, yadda yadda, BUT THEN ALSO STARTS WRITING IN CLARE’S DIARY?
So the Gothic-ness is more a theme than it is the actual genre, if that makes sense.
It’s a lot of fun, features three different narrators—I really appreciated how the three narrators kind of play Temporal Leapfrog, in that we often get multiple perspectives of the same scenes—it made me laugh a few times and smirk quite a lot, and the whole thing made me want to revisit Wilkie Collins AND Georgette Heyer:
“Why are Georgette Heyer’s covers so naff? When you think of all the exciting things that happen — abductions, false identities, wild horseback chases — the front of the book nearly always shows a woman in a ballgown, simpering sweetly up at a man.”
Other Nonsense
We’re three weeks into our summer CSA share from Black Kettle Farm, and it is AWESOME and every single time I have walked into the barn to pick it up, I have almost cried? Probably residual pandemic feelings, but also because the vegetables are just so gd beautiful?
SERIOUSLY, THIS WEEK I GOT EMOTIONAL OVER RADISHES.
So if you’re finding yourself getting all emotional over weird things lately, you’re not alone.
A few recent recipes:
More soon, hopefully-probably-maybe.