Sometimes the past enduresand sometimes it never lets go. This best-selling debut by an award-winning writer is both an eerie contemporary ghost story and a dread-inducing psychological thriller. Maggie is a successful young artist who has had bad luck with men. Her last put her in the hospital and, after she’s healed physically, left her needing to get out of London to heal mentally and find a … mentally and find a place of quiet that will restore her creative spirit. On the rugged west coast of Ireland, perched on a wild cliff side, she spies the shell of a cottage that dates back to Great Famine and decides to buy it. When work on the house is done, she invites her dealer to come for the weekend to celebrate along with a couple of women friends, one of whom will become his wife. On the boozy last night, the other friend pulls out an Ouija board. What sinister thing they summon, once invited, will never go.
Ireland is a country haunted by its past. In Billy O’Callaghan’s hands, its terrible beauty becomes a force of inescapable horror that reaches far back in time, before the Famine, before Christianity, to a pagan place where nature and superstition are bound in an endless knot.
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Talk about a different type of ghost story! “The Dead House” is not particularly spooky at first; instead of throwing you right in the middle of a haunted mansion or some such, it slowly builds the tension using the setting and general atmosphere of the place that was so incredibly vivid, I felt like I could actually hear the waves of the ocean roll and crash against the rocks and see the heavy sky the color of lead hang lowly over the desolate landscape. Here, local folklore and legends never died and the laws of ancient religions still have their power. To an unwitting newcomer, a young artist Maggie, it can appear fascinating and even inspirational, but just one Ouija board seance and carelessly uttered permission is enough to open the door to something dark and sinister that will forever change the lives of everyone involved. It starts slow but builds to such a finale, you’ll have chills all over your body, I promise! A perfect choice for all fans of the genre.
I enjoyed this book. great descriptions of the area, house, people etc…and pretty scary
it starts strong and then fades…almost like the other got bored with his own story and then just tied up the ending too conveniently. But I do think it was the authors first book and I love anything set in Ireland and it did capture the moodiness of setting well. He could have just gone so much further.
In a first person voice unlike any other I’ve ever come across, O’Callaghan gifts us with a story that unfolds in just the way you’d want to hear it by the fireside: it is confessional, it is insightful, it is no-nonsense and direct, yet wields evocative words slipped in so seamlessly that the reader is pulled into the fantastic story in cresting waves that move the story forward while explaining the inner workings of the narrator’s vantage point. The reader understands the narrator, art dealer Michael Simmons, right out of the gate. He lays his cards on the table with no apology as he tells about his client, young, vulnerable, and frail painter, Maggie Turner, with whom he cultivates a mentor-like relationship verging on that of siblings, as he guides her career. That Michael is devoted to Maggie’s overall well-being helps us understand his acceptance of her capricious tendencies, and so it is that when Maggie decides to move from London to an isolated, desolate seaside location on Ireland’s rugged west coast, Michael has reservations, yet chalks them up to her artistic temperament needing artistic space.
The Dead House’s story is centered on one fateful night, during a weekend house party at Maggie’s renovated, pre-famine Irish cottage that involves a small group of friends, a bottle of whiskey, and a Ouija board. Everything careens in spine-tingling plausibility from there, in a dynamic that begins in seemingly harmless fun, yet quickly turns off-kilter with unintended consequences that sneak up over the readers shoulder with such disturbance that this book is best not read at night. And yet I’d be hard-pressed to label The Dead House a ghost story; though it is that, it is more. It is a treatise on friendship, a look at the ambiguity of new love, a tip-of-the-hat to Ireland’s storied past, and a lyrical love song to the unfathomable beauty of Ireland’s haunted, windswept terrain.
Let me now confess something I’ve never done before, after reading the last line of this book: I went back to the first page and began again. The reason I did this is because I was nowhere near ready or willing to let the narrator’s voice go; I was too invested, I was too concerned, and the fact that the story is so suspenseful that I read it with white-knuckled urgency made me fully aware, even as I read, that I simply had to go back and revisit its artful language. I’ll site an example of O’Callaghan’s genius with language here: “Another Sunday. Christ, the fools that time can make of us.” But I’m gushing. Because O’Callaghan deserves it.
Creepy and scary and I couldn’t put it down!
It was supposed to be creepy and scary. It was neither. It’s a good thing it was a short book, because I was already mad that I wasted 2 days reading this.
engaging characters…i cared about what happened to them
A dark, wild Irish coast ghost story that you will find hard to put down!
A bit slow at the start to read…lost interest. Maybe I should try again?
An atmospheric setting with lyrical story-telling. It was full of unfolding vignettes within a lovely, haunting tale. I can’t wait for more from this author.
It was meh. I didn’t find it particularly scary or suspenseful. I just kept waiting for it to make it’s point. There was one particular scene which was a bit creepy. I wish the whole book could have kept up this level. But it held my interest to the end just to see where it was going.
O’Callaghan’s prose is so rich that it’s almost Victorian, but doesn’t feel affected at all. It reminds me of Henry James.
A bit disappointing. Not a bad read, but it built to a climax that left me rather unsettled and unsure of what happened to the main character. It just could have had a bit more clarity and less of a vague finish.
I LOVE this author’s lyrical writing. He paints such a stunning, vivid view throughout the story you can picture the rugged Irish coast, the characters, each scen as it unfolds, and it feels more like a movie I’m watching than a book I’m reading. Lovely, although not really very scary. I would not only recommend this book; I would read it again and pretty much anything else he ever writes!
Longing, understanding, solitude and contentment in a beautifully written book.
This book is much more than a ghost story, it’s a story of love, friendship and loneliness. Yes, it has ghosts, but is nevertheless a story about the living and they way we choose to live our lives, about friendship and loyalty. It has its share of old rites, descriptions of the famine that devastated Ireland and superstitions.
Narrated in first-person voice in a way that creates a share sentiment, a connection with the reader. A few pages into the book were enough to fall in love with the narrative style.
The writing is superb, the author has a way with words, in the way he uses them. There are many good writers and many good stories, but not many know how to use the right words, in a simple yet profound way, and deliver a good story.
Do you believe?
“It’s a question that torments even philosophers: Do you believe? Our minds build our worlds for us, setting a line between what is acceptable as truth and what is not. We are conditioned to doubt the reality of the supernatural, and encouraged to assume that our world holds nothing more than the detail of its surface”. —The Dead House
I highly recommend this book!
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.