I am suspicious that if I were to ask the readers of horror to name a few novels about vampires or zombies that most would consider it to be an easy request. But I wonder how many would be able to name a few ghost story novels? I’m guessing not many. Good ghost novels are pretty rare. The ghost story subtype has always been my favorite but also has always been the scarcest. First off it seems to lend itself best to the short story form instead of the novel. Secondly I feel that ghost stories are the easiest type of horror story to mess up. For an author it’s tough to get past the clichés that seem to infest these types of stories and really write something original. Given the fact I’ve been burned in the past by high expectations for ghost novels it was with some trepidation that I decided to pick up a copy of “House of Windows” by John Langan.
The story starts easy enough. A group of friends all somehow related to the English department at SUNY all make a spring break trip back to a place they all hung out when they were students themselves. This now includes Veronica, once a graduate student of Roger, thirty years his junior, then his wife and now his widow. Its not like it used to be. Now there are babies to look out for and people get tired more easily and everyone but Veronica and our narrator are in bed by nine. In an attempt of what she considers “confession” she starts relating the story of what really happened to Roger and the true cause of his disappearance.
Roger, a professor of English literature, had fallen for the lively Veronica. His wife, of course, took this poorly and the resulting divorce was messy and rough, especially when his ex took their son and fed him her version of the story. This poisoned his relationship with the boy, which wasn’t helped by the fact that as an adult his son, Ted, joined the army, something difficult to swallow for the liberal, anti-government English professor. Despite all this Roger and Veronica build a real loving relationship. So when Roger proposes, Veronica decides to invite Ted to the wedding, after all it seems the civil thing to do and he is Roger’s son. Unfortunately she doesn’t tell Roger who is caught unawares when Ted does show up. Without knowing any context, Ted has taken the invite as a sort of insult. The situation soon spirals out of control, becomes physical and both men spend the night in jail. When let out in the morning Ted moves to talk to his father who withdraws his arm and then delivers damning harangue in a way only an English professor can “ … I am no longer your father, you are no longer my son. I disown you; I cast you from me. All bonds between us are sundered: let our bond no longer be true. And when you die may you know fitting torment; may you not escape your failure. You are a stranger to me. Good day, sir”. Veronica starts to think of the words as a curse and never more so than when Ted dies in an ambush in Afghanistan. Moving back into his old home with Veronica, Roger becomes more and more obsessed with the circumstances of his son’s death. Veronica thinks he will snap out of it but as things start going strange in the house she begins to conclude that the curse may have brought Ted back and possibly exacted a price from her as well.
There are many aspects of this novel that I really enjoyed. There are really only two characters with others forming supporting roles and Langan really fleshes them out. Roger and Veronica feel like real people going through events they aren’t sure they believe. While the build-up of suspense of living in a possibly haunted house is well known to readers one of the things I thought Langan succeeded at was increasing the tension and the strangeness as Roger becomes more and more obsessed with the details of Ted’s death. Roger had written his relationship with Ted off ever since the divorce, but his death brings up so many regrets of a failed father-son relationship that the focus on what happened at the ambush is like a band-aid keeping together Rogers failing sanity. Unfortunately as his mental state deteriorates so does any defense against what’s waiting outside. In this aspect I think Langan did particularly well and I found the descriptions he has Veronica use about what is going on with Roger very believable. The best parts of this novel, however, are the visits of the ghost. Yes there is a scary quality to some of the haunting but what really impressed me is how it’s described. No vague movements, no moving objects or floating around. The ghost is simply “other”. It has no business in this reality and the people have no frame of reference for it. Its mere presence is a sledgehammer to the mind and to sanity. Langan has the spirit visit very rarely which makes the episodes even more striking and I found myself re-reading them a few times to really get the image portrayed. Finally there is one last gem I wanted to mention and that is that Langan ties up the story of Roger in a very interesting way, linking together past and present in a way that I found particularly novel and satisfying. For a lover of ghost stories such as myself I found this novel particularly satisfying but I think that anyone who enjoys a good story will love it as well.
© 2017 George Anadiotis
A fine review, George. When I read this about five years ago, I found it a tough novel to summarize for the forum at SFFWorld. Not a lot happens, yet there’s still a good deal going on, but more internal shifts in the characters, shifts in mood, shifts in understanding.
One element my inner-nerd enjoyed was the referencing of other works. Both main characters teach literature so there’s an organic referencing of what they read built into their characters. And that includes a Lovecraftian undercurrent and even what I felt were allusions to Fritz Leiber’s OUR LADY OF DARKNESS.
Since reading this and trying to get other to do the same, I’ve felt this is one of those under-appreciated novels that deserve greater attention. Langan’s recent success will perhaps encourage that kind or reassessment.
Randy M>
Thanks for the comments Randy. Along the lines of what you are saying I’ve encountered others who argue the book moves slowly. My feeling is that the transformations internal and external of the characters is one of the driving forces of the novel and I would argue that part of the “haunting” of the ghost is not just the physical reactions to its presence but the deep effect it makes on the psyche of the characters. As an aside I haven’t read Our Lady of Darkness in years but that is definitely a underrated book in which Lieber comes up a number of completely unique ideas. Perhaps a future review.