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A review by jhscolloquium
The September House by Carissa Orlando
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Debut author Carissa Orlando holds a doctorate in clinical-community psychology and specializes in working with children and adolescents. She is committed to improving the quality of and access to mental health care for children and their families. Orlando says she has written creatively in some form since she was a child and studied creative writing in college. She has long been an avid horror fan so the merger of her knowledge of the workings of the human psyche and love for storytelling was probably inevitable and, with The September House, is demonstrably seamless.
Margaret Hartman and her husband, Hal, longed to own an older home, preferably Victorian. Both of them grew up in fairly transient families, and throughout their marriage they moved from one rental to another, all the while wishing for a permanent, stable residence. Hal taught at the community college and worked as a freelance writer while striving to get his books published. Margaret worked various jobs (retail, administrative assistant, substitute teacher) while focusing on raising their daughter, Katherine, and painted as time and funds allowed. Eventually, Hal sold and began receiving royalties from his books and Margaret showed a few paintings at a local gallery. Katherine graduated from college and launched her own career, and the dream of home ownership was abandoned.
Until Margaret saw the listing for the beautiful cobalt blue house with white trim, a wrap-around porch, and a turret. She immediately recognized it as their dream house. It even boasted rooms that would make a perfect office for Hal and a studio with plenty of sunlight for Margaret. The shockingly low sales price should have served as a warning. When they toured the house – in which no one had resided since sometime in the 1990’s – and were informed by the real estate agent that two deaths took place in the house more than one hundred years ago, they “were barely listening, busy picturing ourselves sipping morning tea in bed, looking out” the master bedroom’s impressive picture window, Margaret recalls. Margaret was so overjoyed at the sight of a claw-foot bathtub in the master bathroom that she didn’t even hear the agent mention the “other deaths in the house” that “seemed to be natural in nature.” Even the dank smell, coupled with the goosebumps Margaret developed in the unfinished, windowless basement with dirt floors that had a “bit of a wrong sense” about it wasn’t enough to dampen Margaret’s enthusiasm. Neither she nor Hal noticed that the agent did not descend the stairs to the basement with them. They went ahead with the purchase and moved into the house in May. At first, Margaret insists, everything was “blissful.”
But in September, the situation began deteriorating. Blood started running out of and down the walls, seeming to originate right over their bed in the master bedroom. The sound of moaning escalated to all-out screaming that continued all night, making it extremely difficult to sleep. Margaret adapted to the mysterious goings-on. “Eventually, one has to give up asking questions, just accept that things are the way they are, and act accordingly,” she explains in her first-person narrative that Orlando employs to tell the story. Fredricka, a maid, appeared with a large gash on her head — where the blow from an axe landed and killed her. Fredricka still performs household tasks, but has trouble operating the toaster (she prefers to roast the bread over a fire the way she did when she was alive a century ago) and in September she moves things around, placing them in nonsensical places and positions. Margaret discovers that if she touches Fredricka, she is whisked back in time to the fateful moment the axe was swung by Fredricka’s attacker, experiencing it from Fredricka’s perspective. A boy about nine or ten years old, Elias, also manifested. He refuses to speak, but howls and uses his long, sharp fangs to bite Margaret if she forgets that he doesn’t “like his personal space invaded.” His stares were “initially unsettling, but one grows used to unsettling things,” Margaret observes. There’s also Angelica, a little girl with sallow skin and one eyelid drooping from its socket, who stands in front of the basement door, pointing and telling Margaret, “He’s down there.” That’s where Master Vale, the former owner, resides.
After living in the house for several years, Hal could no longer tolerate the supernatural goings-on. Margaret explains that he begged her to leave the house with him, but she refused to surrender her home to their other-worldly co-inhabitants. So Hal left without her. Weeks have gone by, and she has heard nothing from him. Worse, she never told Katherine that Hal left and now their daughter is frantic because Hal does not answer his phone, or respond to voice or text messages. When Katherine announces that she is coming to stay with her mother so that she can look for her father, Margaret becomes frantic. Katherine was largely estranged from her father (for reasons that become clear as the story progresses) so Margaret is somewhat baffled by her intense concern for Hal. Worse, Katherine will be arriving in September, the month in which paranormal activity in the house grows more intense every year. More children join Angelica, the relentless screams become louder, the volume of blood pouring from the walls increases, and Fredricka’s illogical re-arranging of furniture, and household and personal items, occurs more often. There are also the numerous birds that fly suicidal missions directly into the home’s windows, requiring Margaret to gather and dispose of the carcasses.
Margaret has no friends except her neighbor, Edie, who is a bit of a busybody and loves to visit with Margaret on the front porch. Edie is pleasant — squat and motherly – and has never questioned the truth of Margaret’s reports about the eerie events that take place in the house. Hal disliked Edie from the moment they met and she launched her nosy inquiries. As Margaret ponders how to keep the truth from Katherine, Edie commiserates, “Oh, Margaret, you’re in a real pickle.” That’s an understatement.
Katherine arrives and, with Margaret, begins visiting every bar in the area to see if Hall has been seen there. Margaret gradually reveals Hal’s struggle with alcoholism that ultimately led to four arrests for driving while under the influence and the rescission of his driver’s license. Which is why he left in a taxi. They also look for him in the local motels and hotels.
Margaret is a sympathetic character, but highly unreliable narrator, and Orlando’s choice to tell the tale in her voice from her unique perspective is highly effective, heightening the suspense. Whether Orlando has crafted a straight-forward horror story, a psychological thriller, or melded the two genres is not immediately apparent. Margaret is earnest and convincing as she relates the details of her interactions with the spirits who inhabit her house. She insists that, aside from the month of September, it continues to be the home she always wanted, and she is stubbornly adamant about remaining there, even though Hal has departed. She feels compassion for the ghosts who are seemingly trapped there and researches the history of the home to gain an understanding of how their lives came to such tragic ends. In an effort to quell the annual disruptions, she repeatedly enlists the help of an elderly local priest who blesses each room. During his final visit, he ventures into the basement, even though the entrance has remained boarded up since an earlier terrifying incident with Master Vale. The priest’s visit makes matters worse.
Katherine’s relationship with her parents has been fraught due to her father’s addiction, the behavior in which he engaged as a result of it, and her mother’s response and choices. Katherine is a very angry young woman who admits that her relationship with her girlfriend has ended, in part, because of her own inability to manage her emotions. Her frustrations have always mushroomed into inappropriate outbursts and full-blown tantrums, but Margaret observes that Katherine is better able to control herself, likely because, as she confesses, she has recently sought therapy. Katherine’s efforts to improve herself and commitment to her parents, despite their shared past, endears her to readers.
What emerges is a depiction of a woman with a family history of mental illness who remained in a deeply troubled marriage. Margaret insists that “everything is survivable” if one simply follows the applicable rules. It becomes clear that she did everything in her power to adhere to the rules governing her marriage to Hal, but did not always succeed. And she has co-existed in her beloved house by adapting rules designed to make her ghostly roommates’ conduct bearable. Devoted to Katherine, Margaret recognized that it was her duty to protect her child and committed herself to that task. But, of course, she was unable to hide the truth from Katherine, and Katherine’s palpable resentment caused her to distance herself from her parents for years. Until now. Aghast that, even though Hal disappeared weeks ago, Margaret never filed a report with the local police, Katherine involves law enforcement in the search as the September days elapse, the spirits’ activities become more pronounced, and Margaret grows increasingly sleep-deprived and nearly incoherent.
The September House proceeds at a rapid pace as details about Hal’s whereabouts emerge and “the pranksters” – as Margaret calls them – respond. A gory, dramatic confrontation tests both Margaret and Katherine, and reveals that Orlando’s story is a clever, multi-layered, allegorical examination of destructive power imbalances in relationships, abuse, family secrets, and the psychological and emotional effects of trauma. It is also an illustration of resilience, resolve, and the freeing and healing power of the truth. Orlando wisely gives readers respites from the deep and relentless emotional intensity of the story with slyly comedic moments. Some of Margaret’s conversations with the pranksters are hilarious, and her visits with Edie are charmingly humorous. But as utterly ridiculous and outrageous as many of the characters’ actions are, Orlando never allows the story to lose focus, delivering clues at well-timed junctures about how Margaret’s decisions and choices landed her in the middle of a horror story. Perhaps. Or is she suffering from some type of psychotic break that has caused her to imagine that paranormal activity is occurring in the house? Does Katherine see and hear the ghosts, as Hal did (accordingly to Margaret, at least)? Do the police who come to investigate Hal’s disappearance see and hear them? Why does Edie, who never enters the house, instead remaining on the porch during her visits, unwaveringly accept as true Margaret’s representations of the goings-on in the old Vale house? Learning the answers to those and other mysteries is a surprisingly entertaining and moving experience. Orlando so skillfully reveals the Hartman family history and how it has shaped the psyches of Margaret and Katherine that they become empathetic characters for whom readers will cheer, counting on Orlando to bring their stories to a satisfying conclusion. She does not disappoint. The September House is an impressive and promising debut.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Margaret Hartman and her husband, Hal, longed to own an older home, preferably Victorian. Both of them grew up in fairly transient families, and throughout their marriage they moved from one rental to another, all the while wishing for a permanent, stable residence. Hal taught at the community college and worked as a freelance writer while striving to get his books published. Margaret worked various jobs (retail, administrative assistant, substitute teacher) while focusing on raising their daughter, Katherine, and painted as time and funds allowed. Eventually, Hal sold and began receiving royalties from his books and Margaret showed a few paintings at a local gallery. Katherine graduated from college and launched her own career, and the dream of home ownership was abandoned.
Until Margaret saw the listing for the beautiful cobalt blue house with white trim, a wrap-around porch, and a turret. She immediately recognized it as their dream house. It even boasted rooms that would make a perfect office for Hal and a studio with plenty of sunlight for Margaret. The shockingly low sales price should have served as a warning. When they toured the house – in which no one had resided since sometime in the 1990’s – and were informed by the real estate agent that two deaths took place in the house more than one hundred years ago, they “were barely listening, busy picturing ourselves sipping morning tea in bed, looking out” the master bedroom’s impressive picture window, Margaret recalls. Margaret was so overjoyed at the sight of a claw-foot bathtub in the master bathroom that she didn’t even hear the agent mention the “other deaths in the house” that “seemed to be natural in nature.” Even the dank smell, coupled with the goosebumps Margaret developed in the unfinished, windowless basement with dirt floors that had a “bit of a wrong sense” about it wasn’t enough to dampen Margaret’s enthusiasm. Neither she nor Hal noticed that the agent did not descend the stairs to the basement with them. They went ahead with the purchase and moved into the house in May. At first, Margaret insists, everything was “blissful.”
But in September, the situation began deteriorating. Blood started running out of and down the walls, seeming to originate right over their bed in the master bedroom. The sound of moaning escalated to all-out screaming that continued all night, making it extremely difficult to sleep. Margaret adapted to the mysterious goings-on. “Eventually, one has to give up asking questions, just accept that things are the way they are, and act accordingly,” she explains in her first-person narrative that Orlando employs to tell the story. Fredricka, a maid, appeared with a large gash on her head — where the blow from an axe landed and killed her. Fredricka still performs household tasks, but has trouble operating the toaster (she prefers to roast the bread over a fire the way she did when she was alive a century ago) and in September she moves things around, placing them in nonsensical places and positions. Margaret discovers that if she touches Fredricka, she is whisked back in time to the fateful moment the axe was swung by Fredricka’s attacker, experiencing it from Fredricka’s perspective. A boy about nine or ten years old, Elias, also manifested. He refuses to speak, but howls and uses his long, sharp fangs to bite Margaret if she forgets that he doesn’t “like his personal space invaded.” His stares were “initially unsettling, but one grows used to unsettling things,” Margaret observes. There’s also Angelica, a little girl with sallow skin and one eyelid drooping from its socket, who stands in front of the basement door, pointing and telling Margaret, “He’s down there.” That’s where Master Vale, the former owner, resides.
After living in the house for several years, Hal could no longer tolerate the supernatural goings-on. Margaret explains that he begged her to leave the house with him, but she refused to surrender her home to their other-worldly co-inhabitants. So Hal left without her. Weeks have gone by, and she has heard nothing from him. Worse, she never told Katherine that Hal left and now their daughter is frantic because Hal does not answer his phone, or respond to voice or text messages. When Katherine announces that she is coming to stay with her mother so that she can look for her father, Margaret becomes frantic. Katherine was largely estranged from her father (for reasons that become clear as the story progresses) so Margaret is somewhat baffled by her intense concern for Hal. Worse, Katherine will be arriving in September, the month in which paranormal activity in the house grows more intense every year. More children join Angelica, the relentless screams become louder, the volume of blood pouring from the walls increases, and Fredricka’s illogical re-arranging of furniture, and household and personal items, occurs more often. There are also the numerous birds that fly suicidal missions directly into the home’s windows, requiring Margaret to gather and dispose of the carcasses.
Margaret has no friends except her neighbor, Edie, who is a bit of a busybody and loves to visit with Margaret on the front porch. Edie is pleasant — squat and motherly – and has never questioned the truth of Margaret’s reports about the eerie events that take place in the house. Hal disliked Edie from the moment they met and she launched her nosy inquiries. As Margaret ponders how to keep the truth from Katherine, Edie commiserates, “Oh, Margaret, you’re in a real pickle.” That’s an understatement.
Katherine arrives and, with Margaret, begins visiting every bar in the area to see if Hall has been seen there. Margaret gradually reveals Hal’s struggle with alcoholism that ultimately led to four arrests for driving while under the influence and the rescission of his driver’s license. Which is why he left in a taxi. They also look for him in the local motels and hotels.
Margaret is a sympathetic character, but highly unreliable narrator, and Orlando’s choice to tell the tale in her voice from her unique perspective is highly effective, heightening the suspense. Whether Orlando has crafted a straight-forward horror story, a psychological thriller, or melded the two genres is not immediately apparent. Margaret is earnest and convincing as she relates the details of her interactions with the spirits who inhabit her house. She insists that, aside from the month of September, it continues to be the home she always wanted, and she is stubbornly adamant about remaining there, even though Hal has departed. She feels compassion for the ghosts who are seemingly trapped there and researches the history of the home to gain an understanding of how their lives came to such tragic ends. In an effort to quell the annual disruptions, she repeatedly enlists the help of an elderly local priest who blesses each room. During his final visit, he ventures into the basement, even though the entrance has remained boarded up since an earlier terrifying incident with Master Vale. The priest’s visit makes matters worse.
Katherine’s relationship with her parents has been fraught due to her father’s addiction, the behavior in which he engaged as a result of it, and her mother’s response and choices. Katherine is a very angry young woman who admits that her relationship with her girlfriend has ended, in part, because of her own inability to manage her emotions. Her frustrations have always mushroomed into inappropriate outbursts and full-blown tantrums, but Margaret observes that Katherine is better able to control herself, likely because, as she confesses, she has recently sought therapy. Katherine’s efforts to improve herself and commitment to her parents, despite their shared past, endears her to readers.
What emerges is a depiction of a woman with a family history of mental illness who remained in a deeply troubled marriage. Margaret insists that “everything is survivable” if one simply follows the applicable rules. It becomes clear that she did everything in her power to adhere to the rules governing her marriage to Hal, but did not always succeed. And she has co-existed in her beloved house by adapting rules designed to make her ghostly roommates’ conduct bearable. Devoted to Katherine, Margaret recognized that it was her duty to protect her child and committed herself to that task. But, of course, she was unable to hide the truth from Katherine, and Katherine’s palpable resentment caused her to distance herself from her parents for years. Until now. Aghast that, even though Hal disappeared weeks ago, Margaret never filed a report with the local police, Katherine involves law enforcement in the search as the September days elapse, the spirits’ activities become more pronounced, and Margaret grows increasingly sleep-deprived and nearly incoherent.
The September House proceeds at a rapid pace as details about Hal’s whereabouts emerge and “the pranksters” – as Margaret calls them – respond. A gory, dramatic confrontation tests both Margaret and Katherine, and reveals that Orlando’s story is a clever, multi-layered, allegorical examination of destructive power imbalances in relationships, abuse, family secrets, and the psychological and emotional effects of trauma. It is also an illustration of resilience, resolve, and the freeing and healing power of the truth. Orlando wisely gives readers respites from the deep and relentless emotional intensity of the story with slyly comedic moments. Some of Margaret’s conversations with the pranksters are hilarious, and her visits with Edie are charmingly humorous. But as utterly ridiculous and outrageous as many of the characters’ actions are, Orlando never allows the story to lose focus, delivering clues at well-timed junctures about how Margaret’s decisions and choices landed her in the middle of a horror story. Perhaps. Or is she suffering from some type of psychotic break that has caused her to imagine that paranormal activity is occurring in the house? Does Katherine see and hear the ghosts, as Hal did (accordingly to Margaret, at least)? Do the police who come to investigate Hal’s disappearance see and hear them? Why does Edie, who never enters the house, instead remaining on the porch during her visits, unwaveringly accept as true Margaret’s representations of the goings-on in the old Vale house? Learning the answers to those and other mysteries is a surprisingly entertaining and moving experience. Orlando so skillfully reveals the Hartman family history and how it has shaped the psyches of Margaret and Katherine that they become empathetic characters for whom readers will cheer, counting on Orlando to bring their stories to a satisfying conclusion. She does not disappoint. The September House is an impressive and promising debut.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.