Why should she make herself remain in this house, with a mother who seemed to be a different person every day and a man who wanted so badly to be frightening, and a thing that came in the night to whisper into her ear? [p. 290]
Called home by her dying mother, Vera Crowder finds herself seeking traces of her beloved, much-missed father in the house that he built for his family. There were journals that she hid, and perhaps something left in the basement where he worked But the house has become an attraction for the worst kind of tourist. There's plexiglass covering every surface, and a 'spiritual rendering artist' named James Duvall has taken up residence in the guest house out back. Duvall is keen to talk to Vera about her father: his own father made his name with a book about Francis Crowder and the infamous murders he committed down in the basement. There are secrets that Vera won't share with Duvall, and secrets that her own mother Daphne, even on her deathbed, won't share with anyone at all.
Just Like Home reminds me of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House: the house itself as a character ('this was a house that knew how to stay quiet'), a constant and claustrophobic presence. There are many oddities about the Crowder House, such as the darkness that seems to gather in the room where Daphne lies in bed, and the way that Vera has always been able to block out the sound of arguments (or worse) by snapping her fingers four times. As Vera revisits her childhood memories, the tone and focus of the story shifts until there's no solid ground.
This is a novel about how some monsters are easier to spot than others. Daphne is horrific (and doesn't get a pass just because she's dying), and Gailey's portrayal of an emotionally abusive mother is chillingly intense. Francis is a murderer, but also a protective parent and an attentive husband; he protects Vera from Daphne's worst excesses, though his feelings towards his daughter are not necessarily healthy. ("Dad loves us," Vera remembers saying to Daphne, who responds crisply: "He loves me. Your relationship with him is your own business." [p. 136] and in his journal "Wonder if she loves me the way I love her?")
I had to read this in a single evening: so much suspense, so many questions, so little desire to turn out the light and lie there wondering what was under the bed* ...Marvellous, horrible, twisty and (by the very satisfying final chapter) peculiarly sweet.
*the cat. Probably.
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