The Night House
A Novel
by Jo Nesbo
Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Knopf
General Fiction (Adult) | Horror
Pub Date: October 3, 2023
DESCRIPTION/SYNOPSIS:
From the internationally best-selling author, a chilling fresh spin on the classic horror novel • When the voices call, don’t answer.
In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number that Tom prank-called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Mirror Forest. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear . . .
She’s going to burn. The girl you love is going to burn. There’s nothing you can do about it.
When another classmate disappears, Richard must find a way to prove his innocence—and preserve his sanity—as he grapples with the dark magic that is possessing Ballantyne and pursuing his destruction.
Then again, Richard may not be the most reliable narrator of his own story . . .
REVIEW:
[Reviewers Note: I don’t include plot point spoilers in my review but, in this case, revealing the structure of the book itself might be considered a spoiler.]
In retrospect, I should have paid more attention to the last line of The Night House description. Like many other novels, Jo Nesbo’s novel is structured in three parts, but where The Night House differs is that each part is almost a different book (and different genre) unto itself, with recurring character names throughout, but not always playing the same characters.
The first part of The Night House presents as a YA horror novel, and my first impression was that the viewpoint — or rather, the intended audience — was probably younger than the young adult stories that generally appeal to me, basically middle grade YA. This is in regard to the dialogue, situations, and behavior of the characters. Nonetheless, the horror premise (inciting incident, at least) of a phone swallowing someone whole had me intrigued. So, I hung in there seeing where the story would go. To my surprise, after part one, there is a complete reset, a fast forward of approximately ten years, the story settling into New Adult category at this point. We learn that a lot of what transpired in the first part didn’t really happen as we were led to believe, which might seem obvious, but genre readers have a strong ability to suspend disbelief and go with the unnatural flow. Finally, in the third part of the novel, the genre (or rather, category) switches again, to mainstream YA fiction in a way I won’t give away.
I revealed the three part structure mainly to explain my reaction to the novel. It’s a clever device, with a satisfying ending, and a lot of readers will appreciate the author’s structural legerdemain. And yet, it also feels like three different moods via three different novellas, and it was hard to get totally invested in any of the three before the structural switch to the next part. Of the three parts, my favorite was the middle section, which I thought had the creepiest potential.
Note: I received a free eGalley of The Night House from Net Galley in consideration of an unbiased review.
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