In The Hollow Places, familiar genre tropes are given a new, terrifying sheen. Portals to other worlds can be fun. Roadside kitschy museums can be fun. In the hands of T. Kingfisher, fun is perhaps the last thought on the mind of protagonist Kara, recently divorced and relocated to help her Uncle Earl tend to his “Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities and Taxidermy” in Hog Chapel, North Carolina.
A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel from the author of the “innovative, unexpected, and absolutely chilling” (Mira Grant, Nebula Award–winning author) The Twisted Ones.
Pray they are hungry.
Kara finds the words in the mysterious bunker that she’s discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle’s house. Freshly divorced and living back at home, Kara now becomes obsessed with these cryptic words and starts exploring this peculiar area—only to discover that it holds portals to countless alternate realities. But these places are haunted by creatures that seem to hear thoughts…and the more one fears them, the stronger they become.
With her distinctive “delightfully fresh and subversive” (SF Bluestocking) prose and the strange, sinister wonder found in Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, The Hollow Places is another compelling and white-knuckled horror novel that you won’t be able to put down.
The Hollow Places is told in the first-person voice of Kara, Carrot to her Uncle and her friend Simon who joins Kara on her otherworldly journey. One day, while her Uncle is recovering from a much-needed surgery, Kara discovers a hole in the wall of the museum. She asks Simon, a barista at the coffee shop next door, to help patch up the hole. When they peer into the hole, they don’t exactly see insulation, 2x4s and what one would expect on the other side of drywall. What they do see is a tunnel that defies the physics of the museum’s building and leads to a door they cannot help but enter.
…and then things get strange and dark. The peculiar interior structure is just the start. Although Kara references Narnia multiple times, what she and Simon discover is not even on the same plane of existence as Narnia. The inspiration for The Hollow Places is a horror story by Algernon Blackwood that H.P. Lovecraft called one of “the most terrifying stories ever written.” To tell anymore about what Kara and Simon discover when they crossover from the “…Museum of Natural Wonders…” would rob the reader of the “joy” of discovery. Well, maybe not joy, but some other uncontrollable emotion closer to fear.
Kara/Carrot’s voice is such a powerful draw into the novel, she’s curious, smart, and ingenious. She talks to herself (and people who don’t talk to themselves are a little crazy, if you ask me) and is well aware of what she might encounter and what it means, she is a reader of the genre which allows her to not completely freak out by what she experiences and only brightens her curiosity. That doesn’t mean she isn’t scared of what she experiences, because that fear of the strange and unknowable is potently felt on the page. The early portion of the novel, prior to Kara’s discovery of the hole, lays some solid groundwork for her character. But when the dark and supernatural elements come into play…whoa.
What helped propel the narrative was the relationship between Carrot and Simon, both assured adults who immediately connect with each other. More than almost anything, I appreciate that Kingfisher did not make them a romantic couple, as is so often a trope in these kinds of horror stories. Kingfisher even does some lampshading about Carrot and Simon’s relationship in their dialogue. That “freeing up” of their relationship allows Kingfisher to focus her storytelling energy on other elements of the characters and what it is they experience on the other side of the hole. There’s a great deal of narrative power in their dialogue and the horrific wonders they experience.
Part of what can make or break a story like this, where there’s a terrifying thing at the center of the plot, is why the thing is causing horror. I thought this element was handled very nicely, and most importantly, quite logically. The reveal was fun and smart.
In the Hollows is the second novel I’ve read from T. Kingfisher and I’m continuing to be impressed, she’s on my must acquire list at this point. If In the Hollows isn’t as creepy and outright scary as her previous novel, The Twisted Ones, it might be more unsettling and weird (in the Weird Tales sense).
In the Hollows is another stellar horror novel from T. Kingfisher.
Highly recommended.
© 2020 Rob H. Bedford
Published by Saga Press Books | October 2020
Hardcover | 352 Pages
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Excerpt: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Hollow-Places/T-Kingfisher/9781534451124#excerpt-content
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
