The New York Times bestseller by the author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, National Post, BookPage, and Kirkus Reviews Keep your eyes peeled for a small black iron door. Down the road from a working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the … working-class British pub, along the brick wall of a narrow alley, if the conditions are exactly right, you’ll find the entrance to Slade House. A stranger will greet you by name and invite you inside. At first, you won’t want to leave. Later, you’ll find that you can’t. Every nine years, the house’s residents—an odd brother and sister—extend a unique invitation to someone who’s different or lonely: a precocious teenager, a recently divorced policeman, a shy college student. But what really goes on inside Slade House? For those who find out, it’s already too late. . . .
Spanning five decades, from the last days of the 1970s to the present, leaping genres, and barreling toward an astonishing conclusion, this intricately woven novel will pull you into a reality-warping new vision of the haunted house story—as only David Mitchell could imagine it.
Praise for Slade House
“A fiendish delight . . . Mitchell is something of a magician.”—The Washington Post
“Entertainingly eerie . . . We turn to [Mitchell] for brain-tickling puzzle palaces, for character studies and for language.”—Chicago Tribune
“A ripping yarn . . . Like Shirley Jackson’s Hill House or the Overlook Hotel from Stephen King’s The Shining, [Slade House] is a thin sliver of hell designed to entrap the unwary. . . . As the Mitchellverse grows ever more expansive and connected, this short but powerful novel hints at still more marvels to come.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Like Stephen King in a fever . . . manically ingenious.”—The Guardian (U.K.)
“A haunted house story that savors of Dickens, Stephen King, J. K. Rowling and H. P. Lovecraft, but possesses more psychic voltage than any of them.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Tightly crafted and suspenseful yet warmly human . . . the ultimate spooky nursery tale for adults.”—The Huffington Post
“Diabolically entertaining . . . dark, thrilling, and fun . . . a thoroughly entertaining ride full of mind games, unexpected twists, and even a few laughs.”—The Daily Beast
“Plants died, milk curdled, and my children went slightly feral as I succumbed to the creepy magic of David Mitchell’s Slade House. It’s a wildly inventive, chilling, and—for all its otherworldliness—wonderfully human haunted house story. I plan to return to its clutches quite often.”—Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl and The Grownup
“I gulped down this novel in a single evening. Painstakingly imagined and crackling with narrative velocity, it’s a Dracula for the new millennium, a reminder of how much fun fiction can be.”—Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“David Mitchell doesn’t break rules so much as he proves them to be inhibitors to lively intelligent fiction.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz
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***SPOILERS***
In Slade House, Mitchell gives us a short novel (239 pages—The Bone Clocks is 624 pages) with a simple structure of five first person accounts of characters falling victim to a pair of supernatural predators, the Grayer twins. Born in 1899 England, the Grayer twins, Jonah and Norah, are telepathic and determined to live forever, a goal that becomes reachable when they learn the arts of the “Shaded Way.” As in The Bone Clocks, the Shaded Way involves Horologists, immortal beings who share the minds and memories of human hosts, usually newborns. And then there are Anchorites. Anchorites are humans who practice dark magic in order to continue to exist. Like Horologists, Anchorites can share space and thoughts within another human. But Anchorites choose to end human lives to extend their own physical existence.
The twins are even more antisocial than the average Anchorite. Since Horologists tend to dispose of any soul-sucking Anchorites they encounter, Jonah and Norah hide out in Slade House, a place tucked in a secluded London alley built in the 1930’s to lure and trap victims. Though the house was destroyed when German bombs took it out in WWll, time stopped in the 1930’s when the twins created an “orison,” a place outside of time and space. They want their physical selves preserved. To do that requires lots of tricks and the right kind of nourishment. They must eat a soul every nine years. Not just any soul—it’s got to be the soul of an “Engifted” (psychic) human. And so with their bodies stashed in the orison attic, they go grocery shopping every nine years by commandeering the bodies of various humans. Out of a mist, like Brigadoon, Slade House appears. Through various maneuvers, the intended victim enters the “lacuna” (the space where Slade House used to be and the site of their power). A variety of illusions take place until the victim eats or drinks the “banjax,” something that loosens the soul from the body. Then dinner is served.
The twins are a nasty pair, making unkind jokes about their victims. Each victim becomes the first person narrator of his or her demise. In 1979 it’s awkward and peculiar eleven-year old Nathan, a Valium user and reluctant escort to his mother, a social climber. Next is the 1989 victim Detective Edmonds who looks for clues on what happened to Nathan. The seductive widow he encounters is really Norah, and when he climbs the stairs, portraits of prior victims line the walls. He recognizes Nathan and hears the boy whisper that he should look for things in the cracks, things that might be used to beat them. “Too late for you,” the boy tells him, “but pass it on to the next (victim).” The passage where Edmonds described seeing his soul has stayed with me: “It’s almost see-through. Like gel, or egg white, and filled with shiny grains of dust, or galaxies, or… God it’s beautiful. Jesus, it shimmers. It’s alive, its mine . . .”
In 1998, the victim is Sally, a college student with a weight problem, a beautiful, supportive but distant sister (Freya) and a romantic nature. Sally is a member of a paranormal investigations group. Sally is also “Engifted,” a fact that brings her and the group to Slade House. Soon, Jonah and Norah dispatch all of the group but Sally, and then impersonate the others while playing cat and mouse games, a way to “season” the soul for good eating with “a sprinkle of last minute despair.” As poor Sally tries to figure out what’s going on, she encounters the ghost of Detective Edmonds. Edmonds gives Sally something he found in the “cracks.” It’s a six-inch needle. As Sally observes her soul being eaten, she warns the twins: “someone’ll stop you one day…”
I would hope so. Is that someone Freya, Sally’s older sister?
It’s 2006 and the loss of her sister Sally haunts Freya, now a New York journalist. She interviews Fred, a witness to the disappearance of Nathan and his mother, and Fred describes the history of the Grayer twins and their unsavory magic. Alas, Fred isn’t really Fred and the barkeep isn’t a barkeep. You guessed it. It’s the Jonah and Norah show. Soon, Freya finds herself immobilized, her soul emerging as the twins prepare to chow down. Then the needle (found in the cracks) that was shown in Act Four appears again. Sally’s ghost makes good on that promise of “someone” to make the pair pay. Score one for humanity when Sal plunges it into Jonah’s neck. How’s that for “seasoning,” bitches? Freya still dies, but her soul remains hers. Not only is Jonah incapacitated, but also dinner plans are cancelled. The next one is nine years away. What to do?
The answer is nothing until 2015. Dinner-to-be is Iris Marinus-Fenby, an academic specializing in paranormal phenomena. Mitchell fans know that Marinus is a character appearing in numerous Mitchell novels. In The Bone Clocks, Marinus is a Horologist. Jonah is weak and fading fast; Norah is desperate for a hearty meal to power up the orison, save her brother and herself from certain death. This time we know something they don’t. Iris seems an easy, juicy target, but things keep going wrong. Norah improvises and it seems all is well until Iris reveals her true nature. Jonah becomes a pile of ash. Just as Norah begins to die, she spots a pregnant woman and takes up residence within the fetus. Norah vows revenge and we have the setup for another Mitchell soul sucking tale.
In Dracula, Van Helsing explains the nature of Dracula’s evil. Jonathan knows what he faces and chooses to fight. In the war between the Horologists and Anchorites, we’re collateral damage, seen as pets or a natural resource. Horologists are the SPCA and the Anchorites are Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Regardless, Slade House was a very good read, easy to follow and understand, though it abruptly ended when it should have been just starting. Okay, Mr. Mitchell, I’d like some more, please.
This book is the perfect book for Halloween in my opinion. It’s almost a combination of a ghost story and a supernatural thriller. The story centers around twins who have the gift of telepathy. They also have the ability to read the minds of others, as well as mind control. The twins want to be immortal so they devise a plan to make it happen. In order to sustain life, every nine years they need to lure a person to Slade House so they can eat that person’s soul.
I absolutely loved the style of this book. It is told increments that occur every nine years. Each vignette is tied into the prior ones rather flawlessly to make a seamless story.
The writing is great as well. The story is quite atmospheric and it is not hard to imagine Slade House and it’s magnificent gardens and the description used to detail the on-goings in the house is fantastic as well. In less than 300 pages, Mitchell manages to delve deeply into the minds of a handful of characters, each who seem to be flawed in some way or another. The story is captivating and drew me in. I read it in one sitting because I really wanted to see how it would resolve itself. Now that I have finished, I intend on reading The Bone Clocks and then most likely rereading this book to see if I gain an additional appreciation of it.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It’s a quick, fun read and has more than enough creepiness to pull you in and get you hooked.
Slade House was my introduction to David Mitchell, and it was a pretty damn good time. The plot is simple (sometimes clever), and after you understand the story’s formula and its tricks it can get a little redundant and predictable, but that didn’t make me enjoy it any less. It was a book that you can tell isn’t really trying to be anything more than fun.
There’s the occasional rant about religion and human nature, which, content-wise, doesn’t bother me in the least, but the heavy-handedness of it irked me a bit. A pet peeve of mine is when you can feel you’ve hit a spot in a story where the writer saw an opportunity to inject his/her opinions and they do so too aggressively. It just pulls me out and breaks the spell when I can feel the author’s presence more than I’d like to.
Another niggle that grated on me was Mitchell’s handling of exposition. There were a few scenes where you’re being given too much info/backstory all at once, instead of finding more creative and organic ways of informing the reader throughout the book. In fact, some of that exposition I didn’t think was entirely necessary and maybe even hurt the story. For me, nothing deflates the terror or dread of a horror story like trying to explain the evil too thoroughly. We fear the unknown far more than the known, in my opinion. Once you flip on the lights and can see the thing that’s hiding in the corner, making those strange noises, it’s not quite as scary.
Despite my complaints, I really did enjoy Slade House. It’s a fun, quick read. Perfect with a cup of hot Earl Grey (or Grayer) on a rainy Saturday afternoon, curled up in your fattest, favorite chair.
I’m giving this book 3 stars for writing/style and 5 stars for story. Overall, I averaged to land on 4 stars.
A really unusual plot development approach that pays off in the end.
Concept not character development
Somethings I don’t normally read, but it was very interesting overall. Well written.
Difficult to follow–rediculus premise.
This book was scary and haunting. It was well written and interesting. Lots of plot turns and a great ending.
Like a dark chocolate — goes down fast and easy.
A horror in four parts. Not scary but quick.
Surprisingly, to me, it was written by the same man who co-translated “The Reason I Jump” — a personal account of an autistic boy. A very worthwhile book.
Oh, and David Mitchell wrote “Could Atlas” — a book I tried to read several times and just gave up on.
Great writing style, awesome command of english.
Might be the best horror novel I’ve read in the past ten years or more. And written by probably the best writer I have ever read.
I’m a sucker for a great ghost story and gorgeous writing!
This book scared me. It’s too real to be unreal. That’s the genius of David Mitchell. He takes what could be a Bleak House or Wuthering Heights and turns it into true, prescient horror. This book has stayed with me, it’s commentary on people, couples, and choices is profound.
A complex and beautifully written ghost story.
Not on a par with “ Cloud Atlas,” but cleverly written on many levels. I think it went on too long and the ending, while clever was not entirely satisfactory.
Don’t bother with this one! It’s way out there and is very dark.
Over the course of 90 years, people are often seen going into Slade House through its only street entrance, the rear door of a walled garden that backs up into an almost hidden alleyway in a British city. Oddly, no one ever seems to be seen coming out again. As mysterious disappearances pile up, friends, relatives, the police, and even academic researchers into psychic phenomena send investigators to the house. They’re never seen again either. David Mitchell’s classic haunted-house story is a riveting page-turner, spooky, exciting, smart, and funny. The novel spins off from the world of Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, referring to some of the same characters, but I enjoyed Slade House even more.
A truly fun read, I was entertained. Satisfying plot pace, it kept me interested and guessing throughout. Enjoyable horror read.
If you like the unpredictable and slightly scary, this is an enjoyable read.
Not as good as his other books