Order A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS here
(also reviewed)
Order SWALLOWING A DONKEY'S EYE here
I don't know how to explain to her that my older sister hasn't aged at all in fifteen-plus years and there never was a before everything happened.
There are these buzzwords in the art of promotion and also in reviewing, that are supposed to explain something without actually explaining it. They're a ready-made explanation in itself. Take the word "psychological" for example, put the word psychological on a novel or a movie and have a lot of people talking to each other and it'll become a psychological thriller, a psychological drama or whatever. Truth is, writing interesting psychological fiction is tricky and not something many authors can pull off very well. Paul Tremblay, in his latest novel A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS, gives a master class in the lost art of psychological horror and he does it so well that it alleviates a couple inevitable flaws that come with writing such ambitious material. It goes without saying, this is not for the faint of heart.
The Barrett family lives a quiet existence in suburban New England until their teenage daughter Marjorie starts exhibiting symptoms of acute schizophrenia. By that, I mean she's being absolutely fucking terrifying. The hospital bills are starting to pile up and Marjorie is not getting better, so her parents turn to a Catholic priest who believe she's possessed by a demon and a production company that turns their ordeal into a reality show: The Possession. A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS is narrated by Marjorie's younger sister Meredith 15 years later, under the form of interview under the form of tell-all interview and blog entries that review the episodes of The Possession. Breaking down what happened back then over and over again is how Meredith copes with the horror of what she lived so young, but is there a "truth" to this episode of her life, per se?
A great psychological story isn't just about displaying understated, non-graphic horror. It's also about keeping the reader guessing. In fact, it's as much about understanding his fears as it is about presenting freaky material. A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS continuously dangles between family drama and psychological horror due to the Barrett family's ignorance of the cause of their daughter's behavior (issue caused by their financial difficulties) and the innocent, childlike point of view of Meredith, who was only eight years old when it happened. Paul Tremblay gives a subtle shout to excellent psychological horror movie SESSION 9 in A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS, which I thought was clever, because his novel uses the same mechanics in order to stay one step ahead of its audience. The key here being that you're left alone to figure out what Marjorie has and yet you have a better chance than anybody else to do so.
"The flooding black river of blood will be the only thing to ever pour out of your mouth again. No more words. No one will listen to you. That's the worst part, Merry. You will not be able to speak ever again, which means you will never be able to tell anyone about what will happen next to you and everyone else in this house. All the awful, terrible, unspeakable shit that will happen to you, and it will happen to you, and to everyone else...I know. I've heart about it and I've seen it. No one escapes."
A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS' terrific brand of psychological horror isn't without its drawbacks. There is one particular issues that kind of undermined the reading for me, but if I put myself in Paul Tremblay's shoes, I wouldn't even know how to deal with it. The novel is narrated from Meredith's first person point of view and her frantic, outpouring delivery doesn't suit the scenes very well. I think it handicaps the dramatic potential of certain scenes and most important, it makes some scenes slow and byzantine when they don't need to be. There is an instance where one day stretches over multiple chapters for example. I read myself off the page more than once, reading slow and hyper-detailed scenes and wondering if I missed a detail buried somewhere and chances are that I did. The voice creates pacing issues, but like I said, I wouldn't have known how to fix this up either.
I love a good psychological horror story and I thought that A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS was more than satisfying in that regard. It crept under my skin, exploited my very contemporary instinct to turn to science in order to explain things and used it against me. That is what great psychological horror does, it's never afraid to fuck with its reader. There are voice and pacing issues that made the reading more difficult (and maybe less enjoyable), but I went through it all without second thoughts because the mindfuck was worth the trip. I don't get afraid all that often from reading, but A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS messed with my sense of reality just enough to make me uncomfortable and keep me reading at the same time. This is real horror, there are no supernatural shortcuts to this novel and it's why it is so efficiently disturbing. I'll repeat myself: a very compelling read, but not for the faint of heart.
I love a good psychological horror story and I thought that A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS was more than satisfying in that regard. It crept under my skin, exploited my very contemporary instinct to turn to science in order to explain things and used it against me. That is what great psychological horror does, it's never afraid to fuck with its reader. There are voice and pacing issues that made the reading more difficult (and maybe less enjoyable), but I went through it all without second thoughts because the mindfuck was worth the trip. I don't get afraid all that often from reading, but A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS messed with my sense of reality just enough to make me uncomfortable and keep me reading at the same time. This is real horror, there are no supernatural shortcuts to this novel and it's why it is so efficiently disturbing. I'll repeat myself: a very compelling read, but not for the faint of heart.
