Customer Reviews

The Dwelling: A Novel

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, about an unquiet house, and its effects on a procession of occupants. For one thing, it's far more character-driven than any other haunted house tale I've read, and it hooked me in the sense that I wanted to find out what would happen to the very flesh and blood people Moloney portrays. Of course the main character is the house, and it has something different in store for each set of new buyers as they take possession. Instead, the house takes possession of them, and they experience various horrors as the house's manifestations go about exploiting the new owners' particular weaknesses, insecurities, frailties, and fears. In various ways, the characters who come to inhabit the house at 362 Belisle Street lead comfortless lives due to difficult personal problems. Combine their resulting anxieties with what the they must endure because of the house, and you have characters whose lives are all the more harrowing.

Moloney does not string you along with cheap shocks or false tension builders such as cats jumping out of dark corners or windows banging in the wind. If a door opens by itself, it's because there's something supernatural behind it. Moloney's narrative keeps you in a continual state of tension because the story is unpredictable -- you might know something bad is going to happen soon, you just can't predict what it will be exactly. And sometimes the scares come when you don't fully expect them.

The characters and their lives are drawn in detail, and while this contributes to a plot structure that is somewhat digressionary, Moloney always stays in control of the narrative and avoids overly extraneous detail. Such story development makes for a very satisfying read, and allows for necessary breaks between the more intense sequences. It also keeps the horror effect keen-edged, from dulling due to over-exposure and over-experience on the part of the reader.

Moloney's novel is reminiscent of the mounting sense of dread found in the works of Shirley Jackson. That being said, it's fair to say Moloney has given new life to the horror genre. She's dealt thoughtfully with what might actually cause a house to become haunted, and the concrete experiences real people might face were they to take up residence in such a place. To her credit, she gives us a story that is at once credible, chilling, horrifying, and unsettling.

Even without the haunted house elements the stories of the various characters in "The Dwelling" - the circumstances in their lives leading up to their moves and the paths they begin to take thereafter, along with extremely well-realized subplots, could have made for a great book. And even with less compelling characters and with many of the best 'outside-the-supernatural' subplots eliminated, just the superbly written tale of the haunted dwelling - perhaps inhabited by more conventional 'stock' characters - could still have been a great book. But put the two elements together: the deep, personal storytelling involving the people before, during, and after their time at 362 Belisle; and the enormously high-quality tale of that eerie and enchanting house, and you come up with an absolute masterpiece. "The Dwelling" excels on multiple levels and may well be the greatest novel of its year, 2003.

The house on 362 Belisle Street is a haunted place unlike any I've before encountered in any kind of tale (and I've read and watched quite a few 'haunted house'-type stories), an enigmatic place that one is at first hard-pressed to understand if its nature is malevolent or benevolent. In ways it seems to be the culmination of elements of both from hundreds of years of haunting tales. The house fascinates, but so do the human characters. Over the course of time, more than one group of people pass through this house, which begins the book as a for-sale property, and some are only in the house and the story briefly, others for extended periods. Some exit the narrative flow of events only to re-emerge later. All of the players who have any legth of page time are interesting, and most of them are people I came to care for. It's here that Moloney's skill as a writer shows perhaps most brilliantly: while there are certain characters who are overtly likable and would be so under the guidance of almost any author, there are others who seemingly should - by nature of their attitudes and/or actions - come off as gratingly unsympathetic but are written here in such a way that, while not hiding their shortcomings, allows the reader to go beyond their less desirable traits and deeply like them in spite of these things. Or failing that, at least to understand and be intrigued by them in spite of those things. That's most of the characters. Others, pure villains, pass through these pages who are bereft of any redeeming or likable value, and yet they still add to the book. The casual cruelty of a couple of characters one encounters comes off as more disturbing and unnervingly realistic than most planned malevolences would.

I liked it that the central characters ranged in age from young children to over sixty, and were equally well-done. Sometimes in a book's ensemble cast the very young and/or older characters (such as those inserted neatly into the 'grandparent' slot) seem to have received less care in their crafting and to come off almost as props to the characaters between about fifteen and about fourty. As an ardent comic book fan I also appreciated having one of the lead characters in the role of an ex-advertising artists turned struggling comic artist - very cool.

As for the house itself - through some uncanny magic, even the oldest and most used 'haunting' aspects come off fresh and real. Footfalls in the night, doors that be either open or shut but instead are the opposite, that sort of thing. And these lead up to more inventive manifestations, such as walls that were recently repainted a new color having returned themselves to their original color the next time a new character notices them, as if the house molds itself to its own liking. A lot of things in the early going seem small, or could be coincidence or imagination, except for the fact that so many of these 'things' are happening. And the fact that the book has so many characters means that one character can note a couple of things that a different person in the book (someone they maybe even don't come into contact with) doesn't observe, but instead takes note of different curiosities, means that there can be a constant, almost staccatto, stram of odd and bizarre occurences, but no one person has any idea how many of them are happening, sometimes practically one on top of another. It all makes for a wonderfully mysterious and eerie atmosphere.

I think "The Dwelling" is a strong contender for best haunted house story ever written. It's a trememendous tale, essential for all fright fans and so superb in its writing style, descriptiveness and characterization that it might even encourage some non-fans who come into contact with it to take a closer look at the whole horror field.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, about an unquiet house, and its effects on a procession of occupants. For one thing, it's far more character-driven than any other haunted house tale I've read, and it hooked me in the sense that I wanted to find out what would happen to the very flesh and blood people Moloney portrays. Of course, the main character is the house and it has something different in store for each set of new buyers as they take possession. Instead, the house takes possession of them, and they experience various things, depending on how the house's manifestations exploit the new owners' individual weaknesses, insecurities, frailties, and fears. In one way or another, the characters who come to inhabit the house at 362 Belisle Street lead comfortless lives as they deal with various immediate threats. Combine those all-too-common human anxieties with what the they must face because of the house, and you have characters whose lives are all the more harrowing.

Moloney does not string you along with cheap shocks or false tension builders such as cats jumping out of dark corners or windows banging in the wind. If a door opens by itself, it's because there's something supernatural behind it. Moloney's narrative keeps you in a continual state of tension because the story is unpredictable -- you might know something bad is going to happen soon, you just can't predict what it will be exactly. And sometimes the scares come when you don't fully expect them.

The characters and their lives are drawn in detail, and while this contributes to a plot structure that is somewhat digressionary, Moloney always stays in control of the narrative and avoids overly extraneous detail. Such story development makes for a very satisfying read, and, if anything, allows for necessary breaks between the more intense sequences. It also keeps the horror effect keen-edged, and from dulling due to over-exposure and over-experience on the part of the reader.

Moloney's novel is reminiscent of the mounting sense of dread found in the works of Shirley Jackson. That being said, it's fair to say Moloney has given new life to the horror genre. She's dealt thoughtfully with what might actually cause a house to become haunted, and the concrete experiences real people might face were they to take up residence in such a place. To her credit, she gives us a story that is at once credible, chilling, horrifying, and unsettling.

THE DWELLING is a curiously satisfying ghost story that posses a quiet realism unusual to its genre. Susie Moloney addresses the issue of a haunted house which such grace and delicacy that one might suspect she has actually lived in one. What I mean here is that this book is chilling in the sense of late night conversations about creepy experiences. There is neither blood nor gore nor clichéd moments of B Movie horror. Instead, there is a stillness and a great deal of supernatural tension. The climactic moments of horror happen "off camera" as it were - for Moloney cleverly shields the reader from scenes of violence and horror which might detract from the mood.

The protagonist would be the house itself or rather, the disparate spirits which inhabit its rooms. In fact, the rooms itself are characters each of whom "stars" in his or her own story and makes cameos in the other sections. There is a tiny guestroom with a Murphy bed, a blue child's room with an insidious closet, a yellow bedroom filled with the taint of sickness and a rather morbid claw-footed bathtub - and each has a story to tell. The rather endearing real estate agent Glenn Darnley serves as the consistent human protagonist and the homes living residents (who come and go at a rather alarming rate) are likable yet mildly disposable. I enjoyed them well enough but the house itself is the most compelling element.

Moloney's writing is elegant and restrained - more Henry Miller than Stephen King. She rides the line between richness of explanation and substantial mystery. Most of all the book leaves you wanting more and I would truly love to hear more about 362 Belisle, its history and its future. For those who enjoyed this complexly original novel, I also recommend JULIAN'S HOUSE by Judith Hawkes.

The Dwelling is a different kind of haunted house story. From the very begining it's obvious that there is somehting wrong in this ordinary suburban home. It's inhabited by ghosts and seems to have a mind of its own as well. Three families, all with desperate problems, buy it one after another and the house deals with them.

The first and most interesting are a young married couple; Becca and Dan. Becca is too snooty, cold and hard and her talented,dreamy husband is too soft. The house dislikes Becca but wants to play awhile with her husband.

The second family consists of a miserable woman and her even more miserable 8 year old son. The house and several of it's ghosts offers them a solution but it's one that most of us would probably reject.

The final family consists of Richie and his son. Richie is a talented writer who can't go one hour without a drink and is rapidly turning into a mean drunk. Something in the attic reaches out to Richie and something in him reaches out to it.

Laced in between the adventures of the happy homeowners is the story of Glenn, the sensible, sane and newly widowed realtor who sells the house to all these people. She likes the house and can't understand why it seems to have so much bad luck.

The Dwelling is not a gobs of grue type of horror novel. If you grew up on Uncle Stephen King or delight in Poppy Brite this is not the book for you. It's a cool, intellectual type of horror that belongs more to the Shirley Jackson school. Terrible things happen in this book but they are written up in such a subtle way that you may need to go back a re-read certain sections to figure out what just happened. You don't see the bogey man in the closet but you do feel his breath on your neck in the dark. You don't get a pages long description of the ghoul under the bed but you know he's there waiting to caress your foot if you let it stick out from under the covers. It's that type of book.
I liked it and I really appreciated the non ambiguous ending.

My only nitpick--and it's a tiny one is the use of the elderly neighbor. She appears for a deliciously spooky scene and is abruptly withdrawn. I got the feeling that she has a bigger part in the story but it was edited out except for this one brilliant scene.

I stayed up late two nights in a row reading this book! It is creepy, compelling and scary without being gory and missing the gratuitious violence so many books thrust upon innocent readers. The book concentrates on a haunted house that is unique in that it has several ghosts for reasons divulged near the end of the book. It is so entertaining that I read several passages twice! I highly recommend this book.

My hairdresser passed this book on to me because she thought it was "esoteric." I almost didn't read it -- I don't like scary stories or hauntings, but this one was something special. Susie Moloney really knows how to craft a story, or in this case, four stories! The book is magnificent, worthy of Margaret Atwood or Richard Matheson. Moloney's research must have been quite extensive, as her characterizations are right on, from the most detailed nuances of practicing alcoholic behaviour to the logistics of installing an oversized bathtub. The stories are circular yet linear at the same time, and the end is decidedly satisfying, with just enough information (never too much) to allow the reader to draw her own conclusions and paint her own pictures. This book will make a great film if Hollywood or Toronto ever gets hold of it... and hopefully, they will let Moloney's novel be the framework and not kill the novel's quality with too many special effects and things that go bump in the night (remember what Hollywood did to Tryon's "The Other"?). These hauntings are smart and subtle, causing readers to ask why rather than just having the hell scared out of them. A great read and a real page-turner.

I stay up late to read this book. It is scary, very interesting, true classic "Haunted House" story. It makes you think about the house when you are not reading. Susie Moloney sure master to keep you read pages to pages till the very end.
The haunting activies in this story are pretty real to real life cases, and that makes the book so good. It makes you start wonder if you are alone in your own house.

Be careful of reading some of these reviews! The best thing about a scary story is not knowing what will happen next. Fortunately I read "The Dwelling" BEFORE reading the reviews posted here, because far too many plot details are revealed.

I have read my share of mediocre efforts into the haunted house genre, fortunatly "The Dwelling" is not one of them. This story delivers the goods; its well written, has true-to-life characters, and best of all, it's actually scary. The book almost reads like three novellas, with the common theme being the very creepy house itself. I guarantee that if you are a fan of the haunted house story you will not be disappointed. You may however think twice about that old home renovation. Light on gore and heavy on story, this novel deserves all the praise the reviewers are giving it.