Friday, December 8, 2023

Short Book Reviews: A Domestic Haunted House Thriller

 Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey (Tor)


Oh, my.

I fell in love with Sarah Gailey ‘s writing when Magic for Liars hit the stands, and  I became even more a fan with her tale of hippopotami in the Mississippi River (River of Teeth). Her domestic thriller, The Echo Wife, took her storytelling into new territory and new heights. Now Just Like Home unveils her mature talent. It fits loosely within the new genre of “domestic thriller,” more toward the “domestic horror” side with supernatural elements.

Vera Crowder returns home at the summons of her dying mother, from whom she has been long estranged. She does so reluctantly, because her house--the notorious Crowder House, hand-built by her father—was the scene of serial murders. The town isn’t exactly thrilled to have Vera back. Questions like “Did you know what was going on?” still haunt her. To make matters worse, her father and the house have become the object of true-crime fans, and the son of a journalist who helped to publicize it has become the mother’s caretaker (and heir) and is busy stripping the house for his “murder art pieces.” As Vera sorts her mother’s belongings, the memories she has long suppressed come to life, along with disastrous truths.

I won’t say more about what those truths are because the process of revealing them is one of the ways this book is brilliant. Vera is an unreliable narrator who hides horrific childhood memories from herself, but she herself is not the person initially presented. Nor are her parents. By alternating between past and present, Gailey takes us on an ever-tightening spiral path, each revolution bringing more and deeper connections. The final confrontation and resolution, which would otherwise have come as a surprise—not to mention being utterly unbelievable—proceeds inevitably and naturally from what has come before. It’s a masterful handling of darkly gothic elements, psychopathy, domestic terror, and gorgeously bizarre characters.

Gailey is a writer who has come of age and richly deserves the acclaim she’s earned.

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