A Head Full of Ghosts
by Paul Tremblay
William Morrow, 2015, 1st edition hardcover
284pp, deckled pages
ISBN: 978-0-06-236323-7
A Review by Gene Stewart
A layered, literary mystery/horror novel in a class by itself, likely to be an instant classic, A Head Full of Ghosts is enticing, alluring, compelling, and beautifully written in several voices, on several levels.
We’re being told about an incident, or series of incidents, played out on a television ghost show, by one of the family members, the youngest, Meredith, known as Merry. She is eight when the events unfold, focusing on her 14 year old sister, Marjorie, who is, it seems, possessed by a demon. How does an otherwise normal, lower-middle-class family respond to such a thing?
The mother is a skeptic, the father eager to believe, and their opposing energies inform much of the tension in scenes of domestic family life under huge pressure. Shrinks and drugs don’t work; might prayer? Exorcism? When money runs out an offer is made to pay the family if cameras are allowed in along with the church.
That this TV connection comes through the sanctimonious local priest who has gathered the father into his fold is of no little importance as the results ripple. Are such TV shows and movies, so common these days, funded by a church eager to fan the flames of credulity in order to swell their diminishing congregations? Are these tales of “real life” hauntings mere propaganda exploiting mental illness and superstition for cynical church ends?
We are receiving the story as a best-selling writer interviews Merry about what happened, through Merry’s narrative, and occasionally through a blog Merry writes under an assumed name, one that deconstructs, analyzes, and criticizes the television show her family starred in as if it’s just another piece of horror fiction to be run through the scrutiny mill. Her insights are trenchant, of course, and often devastating. She is commenting on the story she is otherwise telling; it is meta-fiction that functions to undermine even as it illuminates what the reader receives, and how it is delivered.
Tremblay displays masterful control of tone, fleshing out the character of mind in both an eight year old girl who is largely fuzzy about the adult details of what happened back then, and the adult, possibly-unreliable narrator she’s become, as bounced off the best-selling writer who is interviewing her. This choice of Merry to tell the tale is adroitly perfect for a limited omniscience that leaves the reader more informed than any blunt noir might have done. What is terrifying in this book are the new angles you’ll see when you look at your own life.
Many interesting threads and themes converge toward a startling denouement and a shockingly ambiguous conclusion that unravels worse the more it is contemplated. This novel comments intelligently on both the nature of experience and of reality itself. Brilliant in conception and execution, with strong scenes, clear characters, and impeccable prose, A Head Full of Ghosts ends up describing anyone lucky enough to read it.
Remarkable in all ways, this is one of the best books I’ve read in ages. Strongly recommended.
/ Djinn
