posted on 27 Nov 2016

This House Is Haunted by John Boyne

Boyne is an accomplished author of novels for both adults and younger readers and so I felt confident that This House Is Haunted would give me a good quality yarn - something that would relax and entertain over the weekend. After all, who doesn't like a good, creepy ghost story?

I have to declare myself hugely disappointed by what I found. I can't make up my mind whether this was meant to be an affectionate homage to the Victorian ghost story with tongue firmly in cheek or whether it’s a more serious attempt at reproducing the genre that has gone badly awry. You will certainly find every stereotype of the convention crammed into this - an emotionally vulnerable young woman, spooky children, vengeful ghosts, shifty locals, secret rooms - the whole caboodle. Sadly what you won’t find are any real chills or a storyline that conceals any surprises or the kind of shocks that would make you want to keep the light on.

The story itself is as simple as they come: plain but intelligent young schoolmistress, Eliza Caine, loses her father and her home and decides to take an appointment as housekeeper and carer for two children at Gaudlin Hall in Norfolk. From the outset on her arrival a series of strange events  disturb her and she's even more perplexed to discover that there seems to be no sign of her employers in the Hall. The two children, a younger boy and an older girl, appear to be there alone - except for a couple of mysterious people who 'do' and who lurk around in a manner that wouldn't be out of place on Cold Comfort Farm. All attempts to find out the whereabouts of the parents are met with evasion or hostility.

As Eliza tries to get the reluctant locals to spill the beans on what is going on at the Hall and when her initial fears that there is something nasty in the woodshed are confirmed, the ghostly violence towards her escalates and becomes life threatening.

By this point I suspect that you, like me, will have rumbled what's afoot. Also, I suspect that you'll ask yourself why our heroine doesn't just do a bunk and leave the Hall, the ghosts, the spooky children and the hugely irritating cast of locals to their own devices. After all, by this point she's been blown in and out of windows, had her hands scalded in boiling water and nearly pushed under a train. Clearly getting the hell out of the place is the only rational thing to do?

But no. Eliza decides that this isn't an option for her because of the children. We are expected to believe that in the relatively short and completely traumatic time she has spent at the Hall she has bonded so deeply with these odd, two dimensional children that she can never countenance leaving them whatever the consequences.

The denouement is positively daft but satisfyingly melodramatic and I'm obviously not going to share it with you in case you end up reading the book. As disappointing as the whole idea is - it doesn't work as a pastiche or as a modern day recreation of the Dickensian ghost story it so often references - Boyne is a good writer and he knows how to turn his hand to some decent characterisation and when the action accelerates in the second half of the book he is skilful enough to take you along with it. He shows what he’s capable of in the rather well crafted and mild flirtation between Eliza and the solicitor Mr Raisin who always seems to know much more than he’s prepared to say.

Having said that, you'll find better ghost stories out there to read this Christmas - this one is strictly for those who have run out of alternatives.

 

Terry Potter

November 2016