There are all kinds of ghosts. We talk most about the ones that appear in the dark, less about those who never leave at all but follow a person everywhere she goes. Ghosts that never make a sound but crawl out of the dreams like cockroaches surprised with a midnight light turned on by a person whose sleep is haunted, whose days are haunted, whose every hour is haunted, whose own life is a ghost of the one she thought awaited her when she was young, before the monster came to her house.
— from Lucky Girl
Ro, short for Roanoke, a student at university, has made tenuous acquaintance with four other lonely people with whom to share Christmas, together surviving a potentially demoralizing holiday, until Ro suggests telling ghost stories.
Although she suggested the pastime and despite being an aspiring writer, Ro holds back, unwilling to tap into her past for a story that might minimize, or expose, her loss: Her family was killed in a home invasion. Ro wasn’t there when someone broke in, instead clandestinely attempting to meet a secret admirer who had arranged a rendezvous but never showed. Now she lives with the guilt of the survivor. But to keep the party going, she tells a story she recognizes as feeble, as do the others. And then it’s Grayson’s turn. Grayson is the wealthiest of the assembled and his story suggests the comforts of wealth. And the terror of Krampus, with enough detail it’s left to his audience to decide how real Grayson’s story is.
A fragile connection, loneliness shared, and yet the five stay in touch and even meet again after the death of one of the group. Still, how much can you know about a group you’ve only met once, who’s only sent Christmas cards back and forth? The four survivors sitting in Grayson’s mansion, attended to by Grayson’s servant, are all but strangers, and the connections between them are slight. Who do you trust when one of them tells you one of the others isn’t trustworthy? And just how much credence should you give to the Krampus story told by Grayson so many years ago?
I rarely suggest a story would have been better if it was longer, but here I think more time spent with Ro’s companions might have given the ending more of an impact. That said, Rickert writes exceptional prose and in Ro has added to her gallery of characters written in shades of melancholy and regret one more whom a reader recognizes as bent if not broken, and can identify with even when concerned about her almost willful naivete. Not a cheerful, uplifting Christmas tale, there’s an atmosphere here of impending disaster proper for a Yuletide ghost story.
LUCKY GIRL: or HOW I BECAME A HORROR WRITER: A KRAMPUS STORY by M. Rickert
(Tor, 2022)
112 pages
ISBN: 978 125 0817 334
Review by Randy Money
