Even in these hyper-enhanced times, it’s not every day that a book arrives for review with glowing recommendations from a broad range of authors. Lev Grossman, Kelly Link, even Stephen King have all raved about this book.
Leigh has, up to now, been best known for her popular (New York Times bestselling) Young Adult books such as Six of Crows and the Grisha Trilogy. By comparison, this is most definitely adult. And it is her best to date. Secret societies, elite academia, the occult. All favourite topics for many readers – think Harry Potter or The Magicians, for example – Ninth House uses these topics to write a book that gripped me from the start.
The book is firmly from the perspective of Alex Stern, a freshman student at prestigious Yale University, who, despite being an English Literature major, is really there for another reason.
Think of her as an intern, albeit one with her university fees covered. However, unlike most of her fellow students, Alex has not had much in the way of privilege in her life. Left home alone by a hippy mom, it should not be much of a surprise to readers that Alex’s early teens have been difficult. An outsider much of her time, she was a teenage dropout in Los Angeles, with associated casual sex, squatter properties, drugs and little money. She’s not stupid but she’s made a lot of wrong life choices. When she is the only survivor of a multiple homicide, she is offered an opportunity that she cannot refuse. Alex is offered, by mysterious benefactors, a place at Yale with all expenses paid as long as she passes her course and performs her covert duties.
Alex’s real job is to be a Dante for the Ninth House, The League of Lethe. Each year at least one freshman is taken on to train by Lethe for such a role. It is a covert group that holds law and keeps order over the eight Houses of the Veil, occult groups kept in balance at Yale. Each house, including the Ninth House, has their own base, or tomb, on campus, with each having different characteristics. Skull and Bones, for example, is regarded as the elite, having produced more Presidents and captains of industry than any other House. Book and Snake is a House whose role is to use a network of the dead to accumulate information that can be sold on to the highest bidder. Perhaps unsurprisingly their clubhouse looks like a mausoleum. By contrast, Manuscript deals with mirror magic and glamour, which might explain why many of its members have gone on to be global celebrities. There are also minor Houses that for various reasons become disowned, such as Aurelian, who are always looking for a way back in.
Unsurprisingly, Alex’s real occupation to most people is a big secret and the reasons for her both having the post offered to her and the reasons for Alex accepting the post are initially unknown to us, but as the novel goes back and forth between the present (‘Early Spring’) and the past (‘Winter’) the backstory is filled in. There are clear political machinations going on here, which are, in part exacerbated by the fact that since she was very young Alex has seen and communicated with ghosts, here called ‘Grays’. This gives her a somewhat different perspective on everyday life at Yale.
Bringing the plot to the present, a murder at Yale means that, as magic is felt to have been involved, she finds herself part of the investigating team. Unfortunately, Alex’s mentor, Darlington, has disappeared (in mysterious circumstances that are disclosed later in the novel) and Alex is left to fend for herself. Much of the novel is about Alex discovering her role and purpose at Yale and having to solve the homicide whilst also resolving the cause and reason for the murder with little help from outside. She is assisted by Pamela Dawes, the young archivist and warden of Lethe’s clubhouse, Il Montagne, and Abel Turner, the liaison between Lethe and the Chief of Police.
Much of the tension in the book is created because Alex is not only out of her depth but feels herself to be an interloper, which works well here. It gives the reader an unembellished view of this world of academia and privilege that may also be unsavoury. Whilst I could quibble a little about how much she has had to learn in the space of a few months (Autumn to Early Spring) and how quickly she adapts to the situation of being left to fend for herself – surely in the absence of her Mentor someone else would have been drafted in, if only temporarily, to support her? – Alex’s lack of experience and insecurity creates complications that makes the conclusion not always obvious. Along the way Alex makes mistakes and spends some time having to deal with the consequences.
Think of this as a much darker, more adult and much more messy version of Hogwarts, although really The Ninth House is more like Lev Grossman’s The Magicians than JK’s Harry Potter. It actually reminded me in places of Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches series, although this is less cringey in terms of romance and there are far fewer plot conveniences here.
However, unlike Potter, this is definitely not one for Young Adults. If Harry Potter is about ‘Magic School’, this is definitely ‘Magic University’, with all of the adult issues that such a place reflects. There’s sex, death, rape (including child rape), torture and lots of fiddling around inside bodies, both living and non-living. The racy parts are… well, sexy, but not overdone in a kind of Fifty Shades manner (or for those wanting something perhaps more genre to compare with, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander). The pace is fast from the beginning. I loved the setting, which being based mainly around Yale University feels wonderfully authentic. (Ms Bardugo is an alumna from there, I understand.)
Most of all, the book suggests a well-constructed world, with a long history and proud traditions that seem both fascinating and real and managed to suspend my sense of disbelief throughout. Ninth House is violent and dark, but this reflects the point that the world the characters exist in is more realistic, being both nuanced and well developed. Even allowing for the R-rated stuff, it would make a great television series.*
Unlike some novels covering similar ground which have shown promise, but in my opinion never fulfilled it, Ninth House is worthy of the accolades being given it. I am usually very wary of handing out such exemplary praise myself, but I’m very pleased to type that I think this one actually deserves it. Be warned – this is not something I usually say, but you will give up lots of time reading this one, or spend time wishing you were reading it.
Recommended – and probably one of my books of the year.
*I typed this before being told, but I understand that the book has been bought by Netflix.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Published by Gollancz, October 2019
ISBN: 9781250313072
480 pages
Review by Mark Yon
