Found Media (including Found Footage films) has been a growing subset of fiction, particularly the horror genre for quite a while. It has found great traction in films (The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity) and has been cropping up in printed fiction. Frankly, going back to Dracula as an epistolary novel, you can say “found media” has been around for quite a while. In Canadian writer Craig DiLouie’s Episode 13, the ghost hunting crew of the reality show Fade to Black takes on the challenge of one of “the most haunted sites in America,” Foundation House in Virginia which was once home to the Paranormal Research Foundation who mysteriously disappeared in 1972.
Fade to Black is the newest hit ghost hunting reality TV show. Led by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin, it delivers weekly hauntings investigated by a dedicated team of ghost hunting experts.
Episode Thirteen takes them to every ghost hunter’s holy grail: the Paranormal Research Foundation. This brooding, derelict mansion holds secrets and clues about bizarre experiments that took place there in the 1970s. It’s also famously haunted, and the team hopes their scientific techniques and high-tech gear will prove it. But as the house begins to reveal itself to them, proof of an afterlife might not be everything Matt dreamed of. A story told in broken pieces, in tapes, journals, and correspondence, this is the story of Episode Thirteen—and how everything went terribly, horribly wrong.
Husband and wife Matt and Claire Kirklin are the stars of Fade to Black and form the backbone of the story. Matt had a paranormal experience when he was very young and has been driven to prove the reality of ghosts ever since. Where Matt is the believer, Claire is the questioner, the one with the science background. Supporting them are Jake Wolfson behind the scenes as the cameraman, and in front of the camera, tech guy Kevin Linscott, a former police office from Philadelphia, and actress Jessica Valenza. They are in their first season of the show and it is going well, but the ratings have plateaued, Matt knows he needs to have Fade to Black finish the first season with a proverbial bang. Fade to Black get that chance when they arrive at Foundation House and decide to make the “finale” a multipart episode, thus the title of the novel. Strange things have been reported as happening at the Foundation House for years, so that’s more than enough of a teaser for the ever-curious Matt Kirklin.
Episode 13 was the first book I read by DiLouie and I was very impressed. A true “mixed media” novel in that portions are told through various types of media: audio transcripts, found journals, text messages, and “confessionals” among others. This all worked very well for me, allowing for a very personal view into each of the characters, we see them through their own words and feelings as well as how their fellow crew members of Fade to Black view them, how they got there, and especially with Claire and Matt, the depth of their relationship.
This is a horror novel so the scares have to be there. What starts out with subtlety as the crew discovers they have arrived at truly haunted place, evolves and grows into much more. I wouldn’t say DiLouie lulls the reader in, but it is a measured, gradual revealing of scares and level of creepiness. The pace of the novel was extremely brisk with nearly perfectly sized chapters, chapters that are large enough to give a sense of completion, but enticing and small enough that I kept thinking, “this story is so addictive, sure I’ll just jump to the next chapter.”
One of the fun things about haunted house stories is just what the source of the haunting is, DiLouie does NOT disappoint in that regard. He took the story in a direction that I would not have been able to predict, but logical enough to make sense and still leave some unanswered questions. Haunted House (or place) stories also illuminate issues/pressures the characters are feeling and experience and again, DiLouie shows an expert hand at that element. I also appreciated how some of the characters had enough “genre savvy” to comment upon and realize just what they were representing as a member of the crew of Fade to Black.
DiLouie has a master’s hand at character and story, this novel had a lot of heart in its characters and built to a thrilling, addictive crescendo. I called out The Blair Witch Project earlier, but other recent films I found resonance with are The Cleansing Hour and Deadstream both feature reality TV/Ghost Hunting types of shows and both currently available only on Shudder. Episode 13 is a fantastic, dark, and chilling take on the haunted house story that has me eager to read more from Craig DiLouie.
Recommended
© 2023 Rob H. Bedford
Redhook Books | January 2024
Trade Paperback | 464 pages
Author Web site: https://craigdilouie.com/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
