Synopsis:
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
But Other Mommy needs an answer.
Review:
You know when a contestant in a cooking show is serving a relatively simple dish, and the judges, with a poorly-concealed sado-masochistic glint in their eyes say “Ooohhh… pork chops, there’s no room for error there…” In that respect, Josh Malerman’s “Incidents Around The House,” is very much a spag bol in the masterchef final. Through the unadorned, short and snappy narration of 8 year old Bela, the entire “pre-possession,” plot of Malerman’s most-discussed work to date is laid bare, but to underestimate it would be a grave mistake. I assure you, the writing, which seems to drip with guileless curiosity and childhood innocence (whilst not leaning too far into precocity or naivety), is but a trojan horse, a cruel trick, because pretty damn quickly things get pretty damn creepy. I am nothing if not fashionably late, and there is barely anything remotely original I have to add to the thousands of reviews the book has already received, but I’ve also never been one to read a book and not remind the whole world that I can in fact read. A novel that meets the towering expectations I rather unfairly stacked against it, “Incidents Around The House,” is childhood terror, every witching hour sprint between the bedroom and the bathroom, every time we lost sight of mum or dad in the supermarket, every monster in every closet, distilled, bottled and served with a smile.
Bela is eight. She lives with Mommy and her best friend Daddo, who very much have their own issues. Unfortunately those marital problems (you know, infidelity, emotional distance, the general malaise of adult life) pail in comparison to the spot of trouble Bela has found herself in. At first she just stayed in the closet and stared, before they slowly became friends. Of course, friends do nice things for each other, but when Other Mommy turns to Bela and asks “Can I go into your heart?” well, I’ll pause to let that marinate.
You with me? “Can I go into your heart?” is, whilst rather polite, of course one of the most horrifying and fundamentally wrong notions in horror literature. It’s a literal and metaphorical violation, the ultimate transgression, that demands Bela not just surrender her innocence, something that pulses at the black, beating heart of this book, but relinquish her entire being. Whether this is a coming-of-age or a coming-apart story, is something I’m afraid you’ll have to find out for yourself, but at the very least she is a catalyst which forces Bela to grow up quickly, and come to the leaden conclusion that Mommy and Daddo can not protect her. In that way, in regard to the revocation of innocence, in regard to the friendship she attempts to form with Bela, in regard to the fact that she is a crude caricature of the mother, someone who should be nurturing and caring and of course in regard to the fact that she is fucking creepy, she is very much like a predator.
As readers we see only fragments of “Other Mommy,” the hair on the back of her arms, the eyes that are only sometimes located on her chin, the fact that she “slithers,” across floors, but aside from that… Hwhat (with a capital h) is she? There’s not quite the same, opaque level of mystery shrouding her as there is in something like Stephen King’s “The Mist,” or indeed Josh’s own “Birdbox.” Other Mommy is tangible enough to scare the bejeesus out of us, yet hovers just outside of the frame of comprehension. Let’s not mince words: “Other Mommy” is terrifying. This is not news. But that terror lies largely in her elusiveness and her duality- a creature that is eerily familiar whilst, as aforementioned, largely a mystery, an antagonist who encapsulates childhood fears whilst embodying the anxieties of adulthood.
A book that certainly will go inside your heart, and stay there, I suddenly understand just how “Incidents Around The House,” has landed itself on so many best of 2024 horror lists, that of course includes my good friends, Charlie Battison’s and Anna Dupre’s. If you haven’t read this book yet, (fellow disadvantaged UK folks, I’ll let you off) consider this your nudge. It’s a novel that unpacks its bags, rearranges the furniture, and claims squatter’s rights in your mind. It is both disarmingly simple and profoundly unsettling, a tale that makes us consider what we think we know about fear, family, the sanctity (or lack of) of the home. It lingers, it festers, and it whispers softly “Can I go into your heart?”
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