A Head Full of Ghosts is the new novel by Paul Tremblay.
It’s the first time I’ve encountered his writing but on the basis of this novel
it won’t be the last. Until Adam Nevill came along, the only book that really
scared me was The Exorcist (to say
nothing of the film which I’ve watched a grand total of one and a half times,
giving up on my second attempt). I can hear the sniggering from younger readers
at that statement who – if generalised impressions are to be believed – now regard
the movie as a comedy with crap effects. They’re wrong. It’s a classic and
anyone not terrified by it has something lacking in their psyche, or doesn’t
have a soul.
Given my
experience with this classic of demonic possession, (the lights actually
flickered at one point when I was reading the book. True story) it was with a little
trepidation that I approached this novel, especially after having seen online comments
about it, and how scary it is given that it shares that subject matter with
William Peter Blatty’s classic.
So, is it
as scary as everyone says?
Oh yes.
The story
concerns the Barretts, a New England family, whose eldest daughter Marjorie
begins to display what are apparently signs of demonic possession. With the
medical profession unable to provide any help, John – the girl’s increasingly
desperate father, contacts the church, convincing them that an exorcism is
required to save his daughter. The church agree but the story is further
complicated by the family’s decision to have their story televised in a weekly “reality”
TV show…
On the
face of it then, nothing outstandingly original – just your average,
run-of-the-mill young girl possessed by demon kind of thing.
Except no.
This is an extremely cleverly constructed piece of writing which takes the
central conceit and turns it into what I regard as one of the finest pieces of
post-modern writing I’ve seen. Seriously, if anyone is teaching post-modernism
as an art form then this book should be on the curriculum.
Fractured
narrative? Check. Metafiction? Check. Deconstruction of tropes and themes?
Check. Simulacra? Oh yes. The opening chapters of this book are deeply
unsettling and scary, making full use of
the imagery and trademarks of every demonic possession book/film there have
been. Familiar yes, but still scary. And it’s precisely this familiarity that
the book plays on, cleverly lulling the reader into accepting them, enjoying
them – getting scared by them – and then meticulously pulling them apart,
casting doubts as to their veracity, persuading the reader that it’s all a
hoax.
The book
is written in first person, narrated by Merry, the younger daughter who is
telling her story to a writer some fifteen years after the events. Cue
unreliable narrator. The ambiguity about what actually happened is added to by
the inclusion of blog extracts from “The Last Final Girl” who dissects every
episode of the TV show (The Possession) pointing out where and how all the fakery
was achieved… The identity of the blogger is revealed about halfway into the book
and it’s a masterstroke by the author, forcing the reader to read the extracts
in a whole new context.
This is a
brilliant book, one of the best I’ve read for some time. It succeeds on very
level, emotionally and intellectually. I could ramble on for hours about how
clever it is but will restrain myself here for fear of spoilers. Suffice to
say, I highly recommend that you should read A Head Full of Ghosts, which you can do by buying it here.
PS No
lights flickered during the reading of this book.
A window
did fly open by itself though.
