![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
When the novel opens, Eric Ross has been on the run with his daughters Dess (18) and Stacy (7) for about a year. They've been living hand-to-mouth and in a succession of cheap motels, with Eric taking whatever jobs he can find (often low-level illegal) and Dess secretly starting to take some similar jobs of her own. We quickly learn that they're not wanted for any crime but are considered missing people; as they're Black, their case is not a priority with law enforcement. Eric and Dess have told Stacy that her mother is back home and will join them soon, but as they're co-conspirators in protecting Stacy both from whatever they're running from and why, it's not clear whether this is true or if the mother is even still alive.
So when Eric spots a want ad for someone to stay in a locally notorious haunted house in the small town of Degener, Texas, with a whole lot of money promised to document paranormal activity on the premises, he jumps at it. But his employer Eunice, an elderly white woman who basically owns the town, isn't being altogether straight with him over exactly why previous tenants failed. The house is a "spite house" - a bizarrely narrow and tall construction built on a tiny slice of land specifically to spite someone nearby, either by looming over them or blocking their view. (This is a real thing.)
The Spite House is a first novel. I'd heard of it already, but bought it after listening to a non-spoilery interview with the author on a podcast, A Pyroclastic Flow of Negative Energy. Johnny Compton (what a great name!) was tremendously likable on it.
The biggest strength of the book is that Stacy and Dess are also tremendously likable, and the other characters are, if not always likable, very sympathetic and believable, or, if not sympathetic, vivid. I was rooting for Eric, Dess, and Stacy so hard. Their relationship as a family and as individual duos is so well-done. There's also a fascinating relationship with their now-dead great-grandfather.
I particularly liked the Eric & Dess relationship, which is a type I'm not sure I've ever seen in fiction before. They're a father and daughter, but the daughter is on the very cusp of adulthood, and they're both transitioning from a child-daughter to an adult-daughter relationship, and due to both personality and circumstances, they're also currently relating to each other as equals and co-parents. It's really interesting and well-done.
The prose is also very good, and the book feels very real apart from the supernatural goings-on. Degener feels like a real place, and its inhabitants like real people. Both people and places have a depth of history and relationships that's very rich and real. There's also a plot turn about halfway through that knocked my socks off.
The book has some big problems as well. In the interview, Compton mentioned that his publisher had limited the book's length as he was a first time author. On the one hand, the book would have benefited from more length as there's a number of elements that felt slighted or missing. On the other hand, portions are slow and feel like not much is happening, so there's an issue with imbalance as well. There's multiple POVs that are fine in themselves but added to the feeling of imbalance; at the current length, it would have been better to limit the POVs to Eric, Dess, and Stacy.
In terms of the spite house itself, Compton focuses mostly on the element of spite in general. There's not as much time spent on the house as a scary place with weird geography as I would have liked.
But my biggest problem with the book was that some very significant elements never got any resolution.
The revelation of the reason the family is running was revealed in the middle of a sentence, acting as a complete record-scratch moment. It was so surprising that I first thought I'd misunderstood it, then thought I'd accidentally skipped several chapters.
STACY DIED BEFORE THE BOOK BEGAN, THEN WAS RESURRECTED MONTHS AFTER SHE WAS BURIED. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE ON THE RUN.
This part of the story is absolutely electrifying...
...up until the book ends with absolutely no explanation of this, other than that her great-grandfather also was resurrected (no explanation of how or why) and so was the spite house's owner (ditto.)
I didn't need a complete or scientific explanation, just... something!
Also, Stacy never seems to learn that this happened, which was really frustrating as it truncates her own arc which seemed to be on a course for HER to get this revelation!
The climax/conclusion was dramatic but confusing. I understand what happened but I'm not totally clear on why.
In conclusion, a book with some excellent aspects and some glaring flaws. I'll definitely read his next book.
Content notes: Depictions of historical and current racism. Child harm/death (in the past). But it's all non-graphic. This is not a gory, violent, or gruesome book at all.
So when Eric spots a want ad for someone to stay in a locally notorious haunted house in the small town of Degener, Texas, with a whole lot of money promised to document paranormal activity on the premises, he jumps at it. But his employer Eunice, an elderly white woman who basically owns the town, isn't being altogether straight with him over exactly why previous tenants failed. The house is a "spite house" - a bizarrely narrow and tall construction built on a tiny slice of land specifically to spite someone nearby, either by looming over them or blocking their view. (This is a real thing.)
The Spite House is a first novel. I'd heard of it already, but bought it after listening to a non-spoilery interview with the author on a podcast, A Pyroclastic Flow of Negative Energy. Johnny Compton (what a great name!) was tremendously likable on it.
The biggest strength of the book is that Stacy and Dess are also tremendously likable, and the other characters are, if not always likable, very sympathetic and believable, or, if not sympathetic, vivid. I was rooting for Eric, Dess, and Stacy so hard. Their relationship as a family and as individual duos is so well-done. There's also a fascinating relationship with their now-dead great-grandfather.
I particularly liked the Eric & Dess relationship, which is a type I'm not sure I've ever seen in fiction before. They're a father and daughter, but the daughter is on the very cusp of adulthood, and they're both transitioning from a child-daughter to an adult-daughter relationship, and due to both personality and circumstances, they're also currently relating to each other as equals and co-parents. It's really interesting and well-done.
The prose is also very good, and the book feels very real apart from the supernatural goings-on. Degener feels like a real place, and its inhabitants like real people. Both people and places have a depth of history and relationships that's very rich and real. There's also a plot turn about halfway through that knocked my socks off.
The book has some big problems as well. In the interview, Compton mentioned that his publisher had limited the book's length as he was a first time author. On the one hand, the book would have benefited from more length as there's a number of elements that felt slighted or missing. On the other hand, portions are slow and feel like not much is happening, so there's an issue with imbalance as well. There's multiple POVs that are fine in themselves but added to the feeling of imbalance; at the current length, it would have been better to limit the POVs to Eric, Dess, and Stacy.
In terms of the spite house itself, Compton focuses mostly on the element of spite in general. There's not as much time spent on the house as a scary place with weird geography as I would have liked.
But my biggest problem with the book was that some very significant elements never got any resolution.
The revelation of the reason the family is running was revealed in the middle of a sentence, acting as a complete record-scratch moment. It was so surprising that I first thought I'd misunderstood it, then thought I'd accidentally skipped several chapters.
STACY DIED BEFORE THE BOOK BEGAN, THEN WAS RESURRECTED MONTHS AFTER SHE WAS BURIED. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE ON THE RUN.
This part of the story is absolutely electrifying...
...up until the book ends with absolutely no explanation of this, other than that her great-grandfather also was resurrected (no explanation of how or why) and so was the spite house's owner (ditto.)
I didn't need a complete or scientific explanation, just... something!
Also, Stacy never seems to learn that this happened, which was really frustrating as it truncates her own arc which seemed to be on a course for HER to get this revelation!
The climax/conclusion was dramatic but confusing. I understand what happened but I'm not totally clear on why.
In conclusion, a book with some excellent aspects and some glaring flaws. I'll definitely read his next book.
Content notes: Depictions of historical and current racism. Child harm/death (in the past). But it's all non-graphic. This is not a gory, violent, or gruesome book at all.
From:
no subject
Intriguing.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
(I read the book several months ago - apologies if I'm misremembering things.)
From:
no subject
From:
no subject