The September House - Carissa Orlando book review
Carissa Orlando's The September House is a twisting, twisted tale of secrets, trauma, and especially... ghosts! It's not for the faint of heart.
Hauntology Now! is the Substack of interdisciplinary artist, designer, musician, academic writer, and cultural critic J. Simpson, where he writes about all things hauntological, atemporal, philosophical, as well as sharing thoughts, reflections, and musings on music, movies, books, and life.
Get out? In this economy?
Margaret and Hal have never had a stable home, not even as children. Instead, they bounced from rental to rental as they raised their daughter, Katherine, while building their careers as an artist and writer, respectively. Homeownership seemed so out of reach they'd gotten out of the habit of looking at real estate listings. Coming across the listing for the beautiful old Victorian on Hawthorn Street felt like fate, especially at that price.
From their very first moments, Margaret felt like she was home. Nothing could draw her out of her beloved Victorian on Hawthorn Street; not even bleeding walls. The thing is, the house on Hawthorn Street was seriously haunted. Every September, the walls drip blood; a subtle moaning gradually grows into a piercing wail; and a group of children's ghosts, whom Margaret comes to refer to as "the pranksters" grow increasingly agitated, mouthlessly wording the phrase "he's down there" while pointing ominously at the basement. Even Fredricka, the ghost maid who came with the house, loses her shit, putting pause on making tea and pot roasts to rearrange furniture, hide things in weird places, and occasionally shriek while remembering the axe that split her skull.
None of this is enough to get Margaret to leave. It's only unbearable one month out of the year. Most of the time it's inconvenient, at worst; as long as Master Vale remains boarded up in the basement. She's no quitter, as we learn while learning about her relationship with Hal as the book progresses. Unfortunately, Hal's not quite so steadfast. Unsure if he can make it through a third September, he vanishes. His sudden disappearance causes their daughter Katherine to finally stop putting off a long overdue visit to her parent's new home.
This is where things start to go off the rails. Margaret knows how to deal with things, after all. She's adaptable. Bending is her super power. That's how she learned to live with Hal's increasingly abusive behavior over the years, after all. How she managed to spare Katherine the worst of it, until she couldn't anymore, causing her to leave in a panic when Hal's drinking got too out of control a few months shy of graduating High School. Their relationship had never been the same since, leaving Hal and Margaret to their own devices. It's more than a little understandable she might be a little worried about her Mom, though, especially as she wasn't able to see the quiet strength that allowed her to keep Katherine relatively safe during her childhood.
The September House really ratchets up in earnest when Katherine comes to visit, as Margaret continues to do what she's always done - protect her daughter from painful truths. Even her family's dysfunction pales in comparison to Master Vale and what he did to all those poor children, even from beyond the grave.
Final Thoughts on The September House
Haunted houses are my favorite genre. They satisfy my thirst for gorgeous old rambling homes, hidden history, and the secrets between people. They're the perfect metaphor for trauma, both personal and interpersonal, with the house, as body, keeping the score, hiding the screams and bloodshed beneath the floorboards, the tears and heartbreak hidden in closets. Ghosts are the ideal imagery for trauma, both personal and interpersonal, live out their damned half-lives, machinery of pain and fear whirring into malevolent motion at the whim of some mysterious cue.
Nearly every review i've read of The September House emphasizes it as a horror-comedy, referring to its quirky tone, comparing it to similar millennial horror novels like the works of T. Kingfisher. These reviews make me wonder if i'd read a different book, if there was something deeply wrong with these reviewers. Or maybe there's something deeply wrong with me. I found The September House a deeply unsettling read, at times viscerally so. Maybe it's because i don't much like being touched. Maybe it's due to viscerally experiencing secondhand cringe and embarrassment. With that in mind, The September House was at times one of the most deeply upsetting books i've read in a minute, and i love it for that. There's a scene in the kitchen when the pranksters, that only Margaret is able to see (at first), surround Margaret, getting increasingly closer and closer, spilling their guts and leaking eyeballs across Margaret's cheek while she attempts to appear not insane. It's insanely powerful horror, the kind that keeps you awake at night, haunting you into the following day.
The September House is top-shelf horror, even if it's hard going at times, maybe even because of it. The characters aren't always likable, especially Katherine, but her behavior is entirely understandable given her backstory. It's also got all the ingredients you could want from a haunted house novel; a compelling history, a research montage (!!!), complicated and messy relationships. Horror is meant to act as a microscope, a searchlight, a jackhammer, a candle in the dark. The September House is all of these, and more besides.
The September House by Carissa Orlanda is out on Berkley Books
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This post originally appeared on Forestpunk.
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