The first half of this book barely resembles horror at all, and for the first few hours I was wondering where it was going. Our narrator, Jonathan, is a fussy fine art photographer living a comfortable upper middle class Manhattan life with his four year old daughter, Joanne. We start to think that maybe Jonathan is something of an unreliable narrator when he begins to obsess over a beautiful harpist, Sara Coleridge, whose mere existence completely turns his own existence upside down. Not long after she makes her way into his family’s life, his daughter starts seeing creepy imaginary friends, ghosts and angels start popping up in his photography work, and everything seems to be tied to a strange middle of nowhere New York town that has survived without electricity or telephones since colonial days.
This may sound like a bunch of horror tropes strung together, but Greenhall is a fantastic writer and the story goes in a direction that is both unexpected and extremely unsettling. We eventually find out exactly how much Jonathan is willing to sacrifice for Sara’s love, which is something that most people would find to be horrifying and unthinkable.
For a few reasons, I can’t say that this is as good as the other Greenhall book I’ve read, Hellhound, which I consider to be something of a masterpiece. As good of a writer as he was, he doesn’t quite avoid the one thing that drives me crazy about a lot of horror fiction. Some of the reactions of characters to the goings-on in this book are just completely unrealistic and baffling! Why is almost no one as horrified as they should be by the ghosts in the pictures? Why don’t Jonathan’s friends and associates make more of an effort to stop him from going to Childgrave once they figure out what may be happening there? This doesn’t really detract from the story, but it also doesn’t go unnoticed.
Horror was an extremely popular genre when this book was published (early 80s), and horror paperbacks were selling so well that many hack writers jumped in the game to make a quick buck off of a genre that is ostensibly easier to write than most others. On the other hand, the genre was also filled with authors like Greenhall, outstanding writers who were probably never truly given a fair shake by critics because they happened to write horror. He was extremely underrated in his day, but fortunately he seems to be getting the rediscovery treatment, thanks to Valancourt and also writers/bloggers like Grady Hendrix and Will Erickson who have championed his work.
This one isn’t quite as good as the other Greenhall I’ve read, Hellhound, which I consider to be something of a masterpiece. Having said that, it’s still an extremely creepy and disturbing tale that fans of quiet horror will really appreciate. Travis Baldtree does an excellent job here, with a delivery that really nails the narrator’s character of a square upper class guy (“I admire the person who refuses the second drink”) whose life descends into madness, so this audiobook is highly recommended.