Yes, I blame the believers for my skepticism. Because they’re not up to it; they’re no challenge; they’re so easily proved fools, I hate them. All those psychic wannabes, those women holding seances and faking so unconvincingly, expecting me to lower my standards to their puerile level; those self-proclaimed parapsychologists pretending to be scientists, who can’t even tell when they started to con themselves; all those pathetic lonely people fooling one another into their clumsy games of afterlife and cosmic relevance just to avoid noticing the nauseating sadness of their real lives. How could such a fascinating realm end up in the hands of idiots who stripped it of any glamour? How could it sink so low?
That’s how I used to feel, bound by reason to boredom.
And then along came Axton house.
– A. on his belief in the paranormal
In November 1995, A. (we never learn his full name) inherits a Virginia estate from an unsuspected recently deceased relative. Coming to America – never stated from where – he and his friend, Niamh (pronounced Neev), a mute teenage girl with punk rock leanings, settle in Axton House. Rumors have it that Axton House is haunted by the ghost of a young slave girl, and A. begins to believe so after encounters in the bathroom. Exploring the house and its environs – there’s a maze on the extensive grounds – A. and Niamh learn the secrets of the past owners and A. begins to have dreams, dreams that don’t feel quite like his own, that take him from place to place, person to person, dreams that diminish his sleep and leave him unrested and anxious, wondering if the owner of Axton House might be cursed, since the former owner and his father, from whom he inherited the house, had both committed suicide.
The Supernatural Enhancements encompasses a haunted house, cryptography, conspiracy, a secret society, secret identities, the games of the rich, a break in, attempted theft, and The X-Files. Composed of letter and diary extracts, snippets from articles and transcripts of interviews as well as of surveillance footage and audio recordings, and at first presenting as a haunted house novel, the book gradually transforms into something weirder. The reader pieces together bits of information into a picture of what A. and Niamh have fallen into, as well as a picture of each character, some of the locals they meet, and of the mysterious Aunt Liza, who hovers over the novel as A. and occasionally Niamh write to her, keeping her informed of their daily life, and the mysteries of Axton House and the former owner. Throughout, Cantero’s cleverness is on display as Niamh finds creative ways of communicating in spite of being mute, a necessary cleverness since much of our understanding of the characters and their situation comes from her interaction with A. and their exchanges imply a similar outlook, and a close, respectful and even loving relationship that grows during the novel.
While not normally fond of stories in which characters are saddled with a name like A., most of the book is in his voice and I found his voice appealing, the tone mostly irreverent, not fearful of haunting, not ominous or dreading the unveiling of Axton House’s secrets. I suspect others will also find that tone appealing — think some of the more comic episodes of The X-Files, a TV show often referred to in the novel — but it may put off others. For me A. and Niamh treating the inheritance as an adventure are reacting the way I’d expect people of their ages to react when put into a simultaneously advantageous and dire situation. That contrast between their irreverence for the norms of a story of the supernatural and the more serious moments give the book an added tension, and maybe more so with some twists late in the book.
All in all, I was entertained.
THE SUPERNATURAL ENHANCEMENTS by Edgar Cantero
(Doubleday, 2014)
ISBN: 9780385538152
353 pages
Review by Randy M. Money
