From the publisher: “From the acclaimed author of Anno Dracula, the perfect gift for those who love the dark fantastic imaginations of Neil Gaiman and T. Kingfisher, this is a nightmarish tale of a haunted Christmas set deep in the British countryside not too long ago. Cosy traditions are made twisted and terrifying as a mother and son grapple with their painful past.
December 1st. Angie and her teenage son Russell (Rust) prepare for Christmas, stringing fairy lights around their isolated home on the Somerset levels and decorating a tree with traditional ornaments. The first door of the advent calendar is opened, but the chocolate inside tastes off. Rust receives his first Christmas card; it’s unsigned, and the message is ‘pinch, punch… first of the month’. The robin chirruping on a bough in a snowy woodland picture looks like a nasty piece of work.
The cards keep coming, one each day and each more sinister than the last, and a frightened Angie recalls ‘The Cards’ – a seasonal TV show from her childhood that featured similar happenings, and while she remembers it vividly, there is no evidence that it was ever broadcast…
Christmas cheer is gradually poisoned, with ‘cruels’ instead of carols, the turkey rotting in the fridge, unwelcome visits from the Merciless Gentlemen and the Jingle Basterds, and Rust becoming increasingly unwell. Angie begins to wonder if her childhood Christmases were in fact as joy filled as she remembers…
A frightening tale of seasonal dread from the acclaimed author of Anno Dracula. Cosy traditions are made twisted and terrifying as a mother and son grapple with their painful past.“
In these days of lengthy series and books running to hundreds of pages, it is occasionally worth remembering that there’s much to be said for a short yet sharp shock of a story. And at 162 pages, Kim Newman’s latest is that.
This is one that builds, from something as gentle and as evocative as a snowy Christmas postcard scene, into something quite.. unusual. Newman knows how to build suspense, going from what seems to be a fairly mundane and peaceful beginning to a rather nerve-shredding conclusion.
What this book, even of this size, gives is a taste of Kim’s enthusiasm and energy. It is so tightly written, it could be a script from the Gilmour Girls. Each line, sentence, phrase has meaning, skilfully crafted. If you blink, you’ll miss a wry comment, a witticism, a detail. Being a Newman book, it is also filled with his trademark cultural details on television (the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas, for example), films and books (Dickens, M. R. James etc). Kim also manages to make some wry comments on self-publishing!
It is also thoroughly contemporary, combining podcasts and social media with references to Christmas events and traditions of the past. I can see people reading this on the countdown to Christmas – a horrible advent calendar!
Alternatively, if you want to give someone a fright after their Christmas turkey? With the lights down low and a roaring fire nearby, this might do the trick. It really gave me the creeps! Recommended.
A CHRISTMAS GHOST STORY by Kim Newman
Published by Titan Books, October 2024
162 pages
ISBN: 978 183 5410 691
Review by Mark Yon
