Paul Tremblay’s horror tale of an obvious teenage possession is a thoroughly frightening take on classics of the genreImagine a literary horror novel that riffs on one of the best and creepiest short stories out there,Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wall-Paper: “It is so pleasant to be out in this noteworthy room and creep around as I please!” Then throw in elements of every tale of possession you’ve read or seen, from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House to William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, or you’ll end up with Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts,one of the most frightening books I’ve read this, or any, or year.
Tremblay’s story,winner of a Bram Stoker award in the US, is told in layer upon layer. Merry – Meredith Barrett is a 23-year-archaic woman telling an author approximately her childhood – how when she was eight, or her 14-year-archaic sister Marjorie suffered a psychotic break,behaving as whether she were possessed by a host of spirits. There are multitudes of voices, unique languages and impossible knowledge. Marjorie tells her diminutive sister terrifying stories: “I’ll keep your tongue and put it on a string, and wear it like a necklace,keep it close against my chest, let it taste my skin until it turns black and shrivels up like all dead things do.” At one point Marjorie is found in her bedroom “clinging to the wall like a spider”, or her arms and legs “spread-eagled,with her hands, wrists, or feet,and ankles sunk into the wall as thoughit were slowly absorbing her”.
None of our narrators here, adult or child Merry, and the blogger,who has secrets of her own, are remotely reliableContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com