Irish Folklore and family secrets form the core of Neil Sharpson’s Knock Knock, Open Wide. Sharpson’s novel starts in 1979 on a dark rainy night, as Etain Lakin comes across a dead body on the road, and strange dogs in pursuit. Etain decides to bring the body to a remote farmhouse and she is strangely expected. It doesn’t get much more normal from that unsettling opening episode.
Knock Knock, Open Wide weaves horror and Celtic myth into a terrifying, heartbreaking supernatural tale of fractured family bonds, the secrets we carry, and the veiled forces that guide Irish life.
Driving home late one night, Etain Larkin finds a corpse on a pitch-black country road deep in the Irish countryside. She takes the corpse to a remote farmhouse. So begins a night of unspeakable horror that will take her to the very brink of sanity.
She will never speak of it again.
Two decades later, Betty Fitzpatrick, newly arrived at college in Dublin, has already fallen in love with the drama society, and the beautiful but troubled Ashling Mallen. As their relationship blossoms, Ashling goes to great lengths to keep Betty away from her family, especially her alcoholic mother, Etain.
As their relationship blossoms, Betty learns her lover’s terrifying family history, and Ashling’s secret obsession. Ashling has become convinced that the horrors inflicted on her family are connected to a seemingly innocent children’s TV show. Everyone in Ireland watched this show in their youth, but Ash soon discovers that no one remembers it quite the same way. And only Ashling seems to remember its a small black goat puppet who lives in a box and only comes out if you don’t behave. They say he’s never come out.
Almost never. When the door between the known and unknown opens, it can never close again.
Sharpson focuses a good portion of the novel on Etain’s daughter Ashling Mallin, though we learn that Ashling was a twin and that other twin disappeared when the girls were very young. It is a disappearance that haunts both Ashling and her mother, but Ashling deals with it a little better, it seems. Ashling finds herself attracted to Betty Fitspatrick as they both are members of the drama club at their college, University College Dublin. There’s also a children’s television show called Puckeen that formed an important and informative influence on Ashling. Puckeen has a long history in this novel for children who grew up in the latter half of the 20th Century, especially Ashling. She’s convinced the show is more than just a children’s show and finds herself drawn to the show as an adult. Ashling has a lot of tragedy in her life, which makes her burgeoning relationship with Betty something of a minefield.
The then jumps between 1979, 1981, 1989, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2015 and is at times quite chaotic. I liked how Sharpson connected the storylines, despite the time jumps, there was a linear sense in how the story unfolded. After that first encounter in which we meet Etain on the dark road, the horror and supernatural elements reveal themselves at a measured pace. There’s a lot of mystery involved, with some characters unaware of the sinister powers at play.
Sharpson is telling the story of a family struck by tragedy, a family torn apart by the tragedy. How these things relate to Puckeen, a few rings that might have deep roots in Irish folklore, and a questionable priest are woven into the story quite well. The way Puckeen factored into the story, I was partially reminded of Candle Cove, the first season of the television anthology program, Channel Zero. In both stories, the children’s program is far more sinister than outward appearances would lead many viewers to believe.
The conclusion felt even more chaotic than the early portions of the novel. I felt as if Sharpson was pacing the novel quite well across the timelines in which he was telling the story, but as the ending drew nearer, the story almost fell off the rails. It doesn’t fall off the rails, thankfully. I’d also like some of the sources of the dark elements to have a bit more of an explanation.
What Knock Knock, Open Wide turns out to be is a puzzle of a novel. Sharpson leads readers through a labyrinth of clues and hints about the dark Irish Folklore elements informing the tragedy of these characters’ lives. The revelations, as they come to light in the various timelines, is handled extremely well. There are creepy elements throughout and no characters or timeline is immune to those dark elements. Knock Knock, Open Wide is a novel that should be read with patience and appreciation for story told with deliberation. I would ultimately recommend this novel.
© 2024 Rob H. Bedford
Tor Nightfire | Hardcover
October 2023 | 326 Pages
https://unshavedmouse.com/ | Twitter: @UnshavedMouse
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
