Customer Reviews

A Face at the Window

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I found myself really getting to know the characters and I loved the little boy in the story. I remember staying up late immersed in a part of the book where the main character has another encounter with the ghost world. During this part of the book, he is very out of touch with reality, and after I finished reading it I realized I was in the same disoriented state. This book is very unique, because it is not your normal ghost story. It combines the life stories of people who lived many years ago with a person who lives in today's world. Even if you don't normally read ghost stories (I normally don't), you would probably not be able to put this book down! I definately wasn't able to.

I have to admit that "A Face at the Window" was not at all what I was expecting. I was prepared to read a "cookie cutter" ghost story. I had not read any reviews, having simply picked this book up at a library sale.
The main character Cookson Selway, an early-retired restauranteur and his wife Ellen, who is a fiction writer travel to England after their daughter goes away to boarding school. Note that this novel is written in what I call "Conversation Form", that is to say that it is written as if the central character, "Cook" is talking to the reader. Prior to leaving American, Cook has an unusual experience which reminds him of a somewhat "psychic" ability he had as a child. A self-described ex-addict [drugs, alcohol] Cook has not had these experiences for years, yet after this daughter leaves for school he has an incident and chalks it up to anxiety over the separation. When he and Ellen travel to England and settle in a very old flat, things begin to get very out of control for Cook. He begins to see and hear things that no one else can see. He strikes up an unusual friendship and bond with Paschal, the hotel's young porter and begins to distance himself from his wife. There are some very spooky appearances, which Cook seems to take in stride and embrace in an obsessive manner which creates a terrific strain on his marriage. There is quite a bit of soul-searching by the main character in this novel, therefore creating a story-within-a-story feel to the novel. A final tragedy finally breaks the obsession Cook has with "helping" the apparitions he encounters and the novel resolves from there. There is a bit of back-tracking in the beginning of the novel, which is truly important later in the story, and the conversational writing style takes a few pages to get used to but overall, this is a very interesting novel, not at tall typical of any ghost story I have ever read. It is much more and well worth reading.

I picked this up almost randomly at the library. The description was intriguing and I found the first half of the book interesting, but it just went to such a depressing place that I had a hard time finishing the book. The "ghosts" in the story mirror the main character's inner demons which soon completely envelope him in a relentless negative vortex. It's a ride into the psyche of an addict; plenty of self-pity and damage to those around, not much, if anything, positive. Too gloomy for my taste.

While reading "A face at the window" I kept trying to decide exactly what the story was trying to be. Was it a ghost story, an examination of a marraige, or the journal of one man's near descent into madness? I conclude it's all of these things, but I must say I found it rather lacking in the scare department. The main reason I choose a ghost story is for a few good frights, and I can't say I had any here. If a book purports to be a ghost story, then give me a chill here and there. Yes, this one had ghosts but they didn't do much other than occasionally beat up the narrator, and be generally annoying. I did find the cover art very intriguing and looked at the face often while reading, in fact I found that image far more frightening than the story. So overall not bad, but certainly not a stellar ghost story. For a much better thrill that is equally well written try "Ghosts" by Noel Hynd.

I bought this book on a recommendation from this site and was unfortunately disappointed. The writing was pleasing and evoked many visual images; however, I never found the characters believable or likable. I found myself hoping all the characters would die. I never found anything scary or disturbing about this novel. It touched upon a couple of cliched reasons why people would go "bad"...incest and lack of parental love for example. More than likely I will forget I ever read this book.

This book had me on the edge my seat until the very last page, where I still sat begging for more. It is not the typical ghost story, because it combines the story of the ghosts extrodanarily well with the real main character'severyday life. Dennis McFarland did a fantastic job of developing his characters and holding his reader's suspense. This is one of the best books I have read in a long time, and I strongly recommend it to fiction readers of all kinds

Dennis McFarland has created a wonderful book which blurs the line between reality and fantasy. His writing is exceptional, and he applies it to a unique storyline, drawing in the reader until they are unaware that there is a line between real and make-believe at all.

While I wouldn't call this genre horror, I would perhaps call it a thriller. It is the worst kind of fear that McFarland instills in us, the fear that any normal person can spuratically become un-ordinary, that something, anything can drive each of us over the edge.

This is Henry James's turf: a ghost story, a psychological thriller, a portrait of a marriage and the story of Americans in London, with some homoerotic undercurrents. But it's also a literary page turner (something James has probably never been accused of writing). I especially loved the way McFarland explored the blurry line between supernatural and psychological demons (cf. Toni Morrison's Beloved). I also loved the complex and nuanced portrait of a long-term marriage, the alternating dance between intimacy and estrangement. Plus, McFarland is just, plain and simple, a stunningly good and unconventional writer. An intelligent good read!

If you are looking for a ghost story, you may be disappointed with A Face at the Window, for this is a story about the "ghosts" that inhabit the dark inner reaches of the soul--addiction, obsession and isolation. The premise of the novel is fairly simple: a couple decides to spend a month in London so that Ellen, the wife, can do research on her book. By chance, they move into a hotel inhabited by ghosts. As Cook, the main character, gets sucked into the world of the dead, his own personality begins to shatter, taking his marriage along with it.

While McFarland is an amazingly perceptive writer, I found that this book did not quite measure up to his previous work. In order to maintain the tension of Ellen's and Cook's marriage as it hits rough waters, we needed to know more about Ellen, but her character remained relatively undeveloped. And because the various "ghosts" actually represented parts of Cook's character, McFarland let the plot slip into something less than gripping (which was also a major drawback in his School for the Blind). I regret to say that in spite of McFarland's fine writing, it was easy to put this book down. But if you are looking for a story that is introspective, beautifully written, and interesting from a psychological perspective, then you will probably enjoy A Face at the Window.

Sadly, the truly haunting Face at the Window is the ghost of the elegant prose that filled The Music Room with lyricism.

I'm inclined to believe (or at least hope) this novel is a much earlier work than the copyright date indicates.

Compared to The Music Room (a novel I consider brilliance bound) ... A Face at the Window should be ignored and the curtains drawn, or like me, you may find yourself making faces back.