This House is Haunted by John Boyne #review

Title: This House is Haunted
Author: John Boyne
Publisher: Transworld Publishers, 2013

In This House is Haunted, a plain-Jane schoolteacher responds to an urgent advertisement to take up a post in Norfolk as a governess to two children from an obviously wealthy family. At first this career opportunity seems like the answers to Eliza Caine’s prayers, as she’s just lost her father and doesn’t have any other prospects.

For some reason, at the age of 21, she’s still unmarried, and whether this is due to a low self-image or whether she’s genuinely hideous, remains for the reader to decide. Personally, I prefer to think that Eliza’s sheltered upbringing has led to her introversion, and living with her elderly father has not helped her cause.

Of course once Eliza arrives at Gaudlin Hall, she is immediately thrust into a supernatural mystery (starting with a pair of ghostly hands trying to shove her under a train on the platform upon her arrival). Being the rational sort, this young woman is not immediately inclined to run screaming, nor does she at first believe that her problems are of a paranormal nature.

Eliza is chiefly concerned that her two charges – the young Isabella and Eustace Westerley – have absent parents, and are growing up isolated in the nearly derelict residence which conveniently has gargoyles on the roof to add to the Gothic mood.

It’s at this point that the story’s wheels come off for me. If you’ve grown up on a steady diet of period dramas and horror films (especially all those cheesy Hammer horrors from the previous century) you’ll quickly pick out nearly every single trope the genre can throw at readers, such as the crumbling mansion with the inexplicable events; suspicious villagers who’re all in on some dreadful secret they won’t share; peculiar children who see dead people; and of course the prerequisite, scary surly groundskeeper.

My feeling is that the author raided those old horror classics for all the scary bits we’ve come to know and expect, and that though these are suited eminently for horror on film, they are not particularly scary when employed in the written word. At least not in the same way that the likes of Stephen King gives me sleepless nights.

Eliza experiences phenomena, and I kept waiting to be scared, but our main character takes things in her stride, and I gained a growing sense, especially when it came to the behaviour of others “in the know” that the author had written other characters to be deliberately mysterious in order to heighten tension. So, to me, this aspect of the book feels contrived.

These things considered, I still enjoyed This House is Haunted, for the same reason that I’m entertained by old-school horror (and here I’m thinking specifically of Guillermo del Torro’s Mama and Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, as well as The Woman in Black, a novel by Susan Hill that was made into a film starring Daniel Radcliffe). None of these offerings are perfect, but they’re still enjoyable.

If you go into This House is Haunted with moments of tongue-in-cheek humour, references to Charles Dickens and typical Gothic novels in mind, then the story might provide perfectly adequate entertainment. Scary, however, it is not, and if you know your tropes well, you’ll see the final outcome arriving from miles away.

John Boyne drops piles of hints from early on that are simple to add together. This results in a story that is to a large extent formulaic, and made me think along the lines of Jane Eyre meets Paranormal Activity.

Famous Modern Ghost Stories #review

Title: Famous Modern Ghost Stories
Introduced by Dorothy Scarborough
Publisher: Knickerbocker Press,  1921

It's sometimes both awesome and awful to return to the classics and see where the roots of horror lie, and this anthology is no exception. Since we live in an age where we suffer from an overabundance of information, it is far easier for authors to gain an understanding of the trends within particular genres.

Having read this collection of short fiction, I can clearly judge how the genre has grown in depth and, also, has devolved. That which is it's boon in contemporary times is also its curse. Not all stories that are released onto today's market are ready for publication.

And, likewise, looking back at the stories in this volume, not all of the tales are paragons of literary greatness. That being said,  I do believe it important for us to be able to look backward and see how far we have come. The short story, as a form, is so vital to fiction, since it creates a literary snapshot of a time and place. And especially so to those who're interested in a particular era.

So, Famous Modern Ghost Stories is a bit of a mixed bag. If I'm going to be objective, I'll state flat out that some of the authors come across like people I probably wouldn't want to hang out with in present times. There were, however, a number of stories that did stand out from the pack.

"The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood deserves its place in the classics section. What starts out as a travelogue in the spirit of high adventure, quickly decays into a tense and decidedly weird and frightening dilemma. The creeping horror is not so much the supernatural phenomena, but rather Blackwood's fantastic evocation of the environment. His world building is masterful, and I got sweaty palms at the parts where the characters were in a race against nature's inexorable flow. It's man versus environment, and the realisation that there is little to separate us from complete catastrophe.

"Lazarus" by Leonid Andreyev is unrelenting in its crushing misery. To be honest, I was startled by the choice in subject matter, of taking a biblical story and subverting it so. Therein lay the horror. Sometimes the dead should remain dead.

"Ligeia" by Edgar Allan Poe, of course, is a treat in all his wonderful wordiness, followed closely by another favourite (and highly underrated) Guy de Maupassant, whose "A Ghost" is suitably atmospheric.

The majority of the other stories didn't really grab me by my short and curlies. There were even a few where I sat back and asked, "What's the point?" We really have come far with the short story as a form.

So, my advice—this slim tome will interest those who would like to dip into vintage horror for the first time or who would like to lay hands on a particular story. I certainly enjoyed this collection and feel it's a keeper that has pointed me in the direction of further reading.

Southern Fried Ghosts with David Youngquist #horror

Today's special guest is none other than David Youngquist, who's got a taste of ghostly tales. He's in the hot-seat today so I can chat with him about a recent collection of short stories he's released entitled Southern Fried Ghosts and their Midwest Cousins. Welcome, David!

Since these are all accounts that you've collected, how did you go about sourcing all these stories? Would love to know what process you followed. And I absolutely adore real-life accounts of paranormal activity.

Depending on the story was how I sourced them. The ones that were told to me first-hand by friends, I had to take their word on, but I did follow up on the one about the pond. I drive by it all the time when I go east of here, and know people who live in the area. Asking around, I got some stories to back up my friend's claim. Most didn't have specific experiences like his, but had creepy things happen. Lights going on on their trucks. Doors locking or unlocking. That kind of thing. Other stories, when I find a specific story and want to research it more, I'll cross reference it with other sources: old news articles now on the net. Other haunting websites. If I can find a person's name, I'll contact them. Then often, when I talk to people, they won't want their names used, so if there are more than one kind of event associated with the location, I'll merge them into a story and have it happen to one person. Otherwise, I have 15 little experiences from 15 different people on a location.

Field trips? Did you have any? Did anything exciting, mysterious or downright weird happen on any of them? I've had people warn me off going on ghost story hunting missions, telling me I shouldn't mess with "that sort of stuff". Would you say you've invited the strange and unusual into your life by delving into these tales? 

My second ghost book, Ghosts of the Illinois Canal System, was all local ghost stories from my area. Those I could investigate all in person, and I did do a lot of ghost hunting with a team while I was writing that book. Sylvia Shults went with on a few occasions at that point. Most of the spirits I deal with are simply humans who have passed on to the other side. Most are harmless. I have however, dealt with a couple of non-human entities (call them demons, and you'd be right) and those are the scary ones. Most spirits can only knock things over, make some noise, that kind of thing. Footsteps are common. We've got great recordings of voices. Sylvia has a recording of one that said "Hello" to her. She's seen red, glowing eyes in a theatre just on the outside of a protective circle she had around her. I've sealed a doorway closed which some pretty nasty spirits were using to cross back and forth. We've recorded a few things on our video. Probably the strangest thing we've captured on film was at a person's house not far from here. We had set up for the night, and were doing our investigation. One of the night cameras was shooting down into the basement. It was set up on a sink, and shooting downstairs. I walked past the moniters, and realized it had fallen over. We went and set it back up, this time taping the feet in place. ten minutes later, I checked again, and again it was aiming at the floor. This time we  taped the whole camera in place, again, shooting footage into the basement down the stairs. Again, 15 minutes later, it was filming floor. We rewound the footage, and every time before the camera fell over, there was a black blur that rushed up the stairs and hit the camera. Got it on film three times.

Weird and unusual, yes, it comes with the territory. I have had spirits follow me home from investigations. Some are less obvious than others. I had a mentor teach me to say a prayer when I leave a site and ask the spirits to stay where they are. I've also learned that when an unfriendly entity is trying to do something to you, or threatening you, crossing yourself will drive it away.

If you go, simply be prepared. Be open to what you're going to find. Realize that the vast majority of spirits out there either don't want to harm you, or can't harm you. And make sure you don't drag any of them home by making them mad and challenging them to do something to you. They don't operate under out time frame or reality anymore.

For that measure, do you have ghost tales of your own? 

I've got lots of ghost stories. One that happened here in our house, happened not long after my mother-in-law passed away. We moved in with Fay's dad to take care of him, and my routine has been established as pretty much the same since then. Up early, work on book stuff, and go from there. I broke routine one night, as I had some writing to do. Everyone else was in bed asleep. All the lights were off in the house, except for the computer, and the one over the kitchen sink. I heard someone come down the steps. The door to the stairs opened, and someone walked across the kitchen to the room where I was working.

"What are you doing up, Babe?" I asked the person as she came to the doorway.

I didn't get an answer, just a swish of a blue nightgown as she turned and walked the other way. Didn't hear anything else, and after a few minutes, I started to wonder where Fay went. No other lights had come on. The door upstairs didn't open. So I went to check. No one else was downstairs. I went up and checked. The kids were in bed. Her dad was in bed. I finally stopped in our room. Fay was dead asleep in a white nightgown.

It was then I remembered her mom died wearing a blue nightgown.

Which are your three favourite tales in the book, and why?

My three favorites. That's a tough one. Kind of like asking who your favorite kid is. There were some real standouts in this collection though. One would the story of The Six Diablos. This was told and recorded as the first ghost story related to The Alamo. Soldiers sent to burn the mission and all the bodies there were driven away by six defending soldiers who rose from the dead of the battlefield. Another would be Stop the Train. This is a really cool story, and the only case of a company (in  this case, Illinois Central Railroad) conducting an investigation, and actually finding a place to be haunted, and taking further steps. All recorded in company notes and archives. Another would be The Lost Nun who haunts a mall in Des Moines, Iowa. Turns out the mall was built on the site of an old convent. One of the nuns was said to be pregnant and aborted the baby. Now she walks the halls weeping and carrying her crying child.


What sort of feedback have you had from readers?

I've had people stop me at work, and in different stores in the area and tell me how much they love my ghost books. At least once a month, I've had folks ask when the next ghost book is coming out, and where they can buy it. So, for those who have been waiting for the next installment, after five long years, here it is.