Monday 20 May 2019

Chills and Thrills: "The Lingering" by SJI Holliday



Chills and Thrills

"The Lingering" by SJI Holliday


Over the past months, my Twitter book feed has waxed enthusiastic about SJI Holliday’s The Lingering – descriptions of the book as a “Gothic chiller” and an “eerie ghost story” made it sound like a novel which would be right up my street.  Yet, other friends on Goodreads whose opinions I respect and often share, seemed less convinced, and gave the book critical, if not downright scathing, reviews.  I recently got to read it and, as often happens with me, I find myself torn between these the two views – I enjoyed the book but, at the same time, I can also understand why some would find it underwhelming.

Jack and Ali are a married couple who want to escape the stresses of city life.  On a gamble, they decide to go to live at Rosalind Hall, where one Smeaton Dunsmore runs a utopian commune based on non-religious but quasi-spiritual principles.  Through manual work, guided meditation and detachment from the outside world, its members seek to “embrace the light” and find inner peace.  But, despite all the talk of light and serenity, Rosalind Hall has a dark past.  Centuries before, it was the site of a notorious witch trial, and until the mid-20th Century, it housed a psychiatric hospital which espoused treatments which were less than humane.  Angela, one of the members of Smeaton’s commune, and the first-person narrator in most of the chapters, is convinced that the Hall is haunted.  And it seems that Jack and Ali have unleashed supernatural forces within the Hall. 

We’re barely thirty pages in when we get the first scare and it’s not long before Holliday pulls out all the stops.    Indeed, the first chapters, which I feverishly devoured on a London Underground journey, place The Lingering squarely within the Gothic ghost story tradition. Wronged spirits, a history of witches, a decrepit building with closed-off rooms, Angela roaming the corridors with ghost-hunting apparatus – it’s seriously eerie stuff.  As we discover more about Jack and Ali’s secret and turbulent past, however, The Lingering takes an unexpected turn, becoming less of a traditional supernatural tale and more of a(n admittedly somewhat far-fetched) psychological thriller.  Holliday retains the supernatural elements as an integral part of the plot, but one cannot help feeling that the second part of the book could equally have worked without its ghostly backstory.

Did I enjoy The Lingering?  Very much.  It’s got plenty of atmosphere and it’s terrifically paced.  The alternation between different viewpoints and first-person and third-person narrative works really well and there are some endearingly eccentric characters.  Yet, I can understand – and, up to a point, also share – the disappointment of readers who approach the novel with the promise and hope of an old-fashioned Gothic ghost story only to see it turn into a contemporary thriller with supernatural frills.  If you don’t mind this, then you’re in for a great treat.           

Paperback256 pages
Published November 15th 2018 by Orenda Books

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