Slade House

Spooky Horror Show

David Mitchell’s last book The Bone Clocks was a richly layered, intricately plotted fantasy novel. In comparison, his Slade House reads like he wrote in vacation mood. Soul-sucking ‘atemporals’? Seriously?

Still, a fine writer can make schlock-y horror very readable.  Mitchell has a character in the book say, “Tonight feels like a board game co-designed by MC Escher and Stephen King in a fever.” That’s exactly what the bookreads like, and it’s not such a bad thing.

Slade House is a collection of interlocking stories that are set in a ghoulish mansion, which is normally invisible, but its gate appears in a back alley when the time is right—for the shape-shifting inhabitants that is; visitors who push that gate and enter the garden, well, they do so at their own risk.

The first story, The Right Sort, sets the tone. It began as a short story on Twitter, and presumably kicked off the rest. Nathan, a valium-addled boy accompanies his mother to Slade House. While his obsequious and embarrassing mother is kowtowing to the Lady of the Manor, Nathan meets, Jonah, a boy his own age. The game of Fox and Hounds that they play ends badly for Nathan.

The reader meets, and is fascinated by, evil twins, Norah and Jonah Grayer, who must ensnare ‘engifted’ human every nine years and replenish their life force by feeding on their souls. In each of the five stories they employ different tactics to get the unsuspecting human in, allow them to see what they want to, and for a short while, even fulfill their wishes. 

How these characters—like the conceited policeman, a sad, fat girl—meet their end, is written with a wicked humour and a dash of sympathy. The reader is also lulled into believing that at least one will escape. And the idea for a sequel is built into the climax.

Mitchell’s imagination never flags; the book that can be read in one long-sitting, is very enjoyable but not much of a mind-twister like Cloud Atlas or The Bone Clocks. He plays with familiar horror tropes and, as another character says, “What I see is the wackometer needle climbing.”  It does climb as high as it can go, but doesn’t burst though the casing.

Slade House

By David Mitchell

Published by: Random House

Pages: 238