Customer Reviews

Fog Heart

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

 

 

The first two chapters compelled me to read on, but then the pace slowed until I had to push myself to read through it. Oona and Roz were the most interesting characters, if not a little weird. I thought Jan's story was heartbreaking, but the rest of the characters I found I didn't care much about. They were too self-absorbed. Mr. Tessier had a great start, fizzled at the middle, then came back with a fast-paced ending. This book requires patience and an open mind.

Though not particularly scary in a Stephen King sort of way, Fog Heart is an intriguingly different sort of mystery. Populated by a cast of psychologically crippled, twisted couples who are initially unknown to one another, the plot revolves around their coming together via their work with an exceedingly strange young medium, Oona. Is she gifted, or is she crazy? How does she know about her clients' deepest secrets? Are the visions that haunt these people real, or fragments of their own damaged personalities? Can Oona help them? Can any of them help Oona, who is tormented by a secret of her own?

Fog Heart is ultimately about the nature of love, truth, reality, relationships, life, and death. It raises some intriguing questions, most of which don't have simple answers.

When Carrie Spence starts having visions of her dead father, she and her husband Oliver consult a young psychic named Oona Muir. Through Oona, they meet Charley and Jan O'Donnell, another couple who believes they are receiving messages from their infant daughter who died tragically in a fire. This eclectic mix of personalities generates disturbing results, as dark crimes from both the past and present are unearthed through Oona's traumatic seances. The truths revealed test the parties involved, driving them to madness, despair, and death.

A book which promptly landed on many reviewers' short list for best novel of 1998, Fogheart is first rate work from a major talent. Tessier casts a dark spell through his gripping narrative--his characters live and breathe, the dialogue shines, and the atmosphere of dread he creates will unnerve even the most jaded reader. Fogheart proves that horror is alive and well, demonstrating that a familiar premise can gain new life in the hands of a capable writer. If Tessier remains "horror fiction's best kept secret" after this one, there is simply no justice.

This book falls far short of its potential. Although I found that I was never emotionally invested in any of the characters, that wasn't my main problem with this book.

I found it lacking in suspense and not scary at all. (Is it categorized as a horror novel because some people were killed?) The only "scary" moments were the ones where Carrie had her encounters...I had to turn off all the lights in my house and read by flashlight to conjure up the tiniest bit of fear.

In addition, the story completely fizzled at the end. Everything seemed far too rushed and hurried. The Roz/Oliver confrontation was just plain unbelievable. Am I to believe that Oliver wasn't the seasoned veteran he seemed to be? All of a sudden, he's a bumbling idiot? And I didn't buy Oona's fate either. It seemed like an easy out for the author.

All in all, the story just disappeared...

Following in the tradition of some of the best British ghost story writers, the American Thomas Tessier (who has spent several years in Ireland) has produced an atmospheric and haunting novel of couples shattered by their failures to understand, communicate with, and love one another.

Tessier's strengths lie in the subtleties of his characters and the ways in which he draws on setting and nuance to develop an overarching sense of loss and dread throughout the novel. We pity, hate, fear, and cheer the three pairs of haunted individuals whose lives intersect through the reluctant medium Oona. Across two continents, a series of unforgivable acts sends ripples of inevitable tragedy through their lives.

By the end of the novel, Tessier's plot twists and spectral appearances have driven the story to a surprising and painful conclusion. But it is the only ending to which these people could come. This is a deep and intelligent novel that horrifies and resonates. Moving and highly recommended.

Oona, a strange, ethereal, suicidal young medium, brings together two married couples. Charley and Jan are haunted by guilt over the death of their infant daughter; Carrie is haunted by visions of her dead father and a murderous, faceless man, while her husband Oliver, blandly guiltless though hideously culpable, is haunted only by the thought that Oona may know more about him than he would like. And Oona, too, has a guilt and a ghost of her own, perhaps the deepest and most awful of them all. Three harrowing psychic episodes, steadily increasing in horrific revelation, entwine all these separate hauntings and bring them to a head. Perhaps, as Oona says, "ghosts are a kind of redemption"; if so, they exact a terrible price. Or perhaps, as Charley bitterly imagines, the "afterlife" is as aimless, chaotic and incomprehensible as life on earth. Which would you prefer? Characteristically, Tessier gives no pat explanations and no easy answers. The ending leaves the two relatively innocent characters alive but devastated by what they have witnessed (supernatural in one case, earthly but hardly natural in the other); however, although nothing is guaranteed, the novel is saved from utter blackness by the tentative reassurances which Oona gives to both survivors. Fog Heart is a superb, complex, bleak modern ghost story, written in Tessier's usual cool, clear style: anything but foggy and without a single wasted word. The characters are beautifully drawn, the set-piece psychic sessions utterly riveting, the visions of Carrie and Charlie described, like Oliver's murderous violence, briefly but with a poet's power.

So I was definitely expecting a really scary ghost story, but instead got a mystery/thriller with supernatural elements. I read the book in pretty much one long sitting, and was very much engrossed, but have some questions/reservations. Why make Oliver so unlikeable? I really wanted to like this guy from page one, but he got more and more bizarre and unrealistic as the novel wore on. What happened to Carrie? I would have thought she'd contact Oona after Munich. Why make both husbands philanderers? I think Charley's character could have been great if he wasn't cheating on Jan, and REALLY stayed with her from beginning to end. It also would have added more weight to the ending...

There were some creepy moments (Carrie in her new client's apt by herself was great) and a number of really interesting ideas, but I think the Marthe/Oliver/Becky angle was too far "out there", plus not enough creepy moments for me to not give this more than three stars. HOWEVER, I'll definitely check out more of Mr. Tessier's books, as this one showed lots of promise!!!



I am someone who loves a good ghost story. While this work has ghosts, I am sorry to say it isn't very good. While this book has been marketed in the horror genre, I don't think it quite fits. While ghosts do appear, they play a relatively minor role. As a result, the novel isn't very scary. In fact, when the ghosts do appear, they are described in relatively lifeless prose so they are difficult to visualize-and what we cannot see we cannot fear. The back of the book contains comments from a reviewer who claims it is "the scariest book I've read," and I read similar comments posted on Amazon's reviews. If you find this work horrifying, I can recommend some gothic ghost tales that would probably kill you. Since the ghosts play a minor role, you might wonder who stars in this work. The staring cast is comprised of an ensemble of uninspiring and rather pathetic people such as the drunkard who pursues affairs with young women, the sadist who pursues affairs with older women, the mother who continues to brood her way through life unable to recover from the death of her child, and the medium who dabbles in a bit of incest. This work is really a character study of this piteous group of people in which ghosts make a few cameo appearances. While I don't mind character studies, I do mind studying people who seem to have such little character. If you are searching for a protagonist in this writing, you had better be prepared for futility (unless you happen to identify with characters who drink too much, have affairs too much, mope too much, engage in sadism too much, or occasionally murder other people-if these are your kind of people, this is your kind of book!). You also need a great deal of patience with this work. Much of it is built around a series of seances conducted by a rather odd figure named Oona. During these seances, Oona breaks into strings of never ending gibberish-and as you read these sections you feel as though they will never end. If you enjoy reading page after page of cryptic prose, you may find this work more enjoyable than I did.

Okay, I know what's wrong. It has to be me. Once again, we have another writer who decides to leave the ending to our own imagination. Is this something people enjoy doing? Or did I miss something in the story that made the ending obvious? SOMEONE HELP ME. TELL ME WHAT THE ENDING MEANT! The book is a mesmerizing and engrossing ghost story, with some marvelous dialogue and characterizations. Few of the characters, however, are truly likeable. The book has murder, kinky sex, incest, extramarital affairs, dead babies, and some vile villains. The way these are tied in are extremely effective, but by the end of the book, I wondered: What happened to Carrie? After her near-death experience in Munich, he never tells us any more about her. And the clincher, what in the world happened to Oona, the psychic, on the cliffs at the end. Sad, Mr. Tessier, this is a fascinating book that I loved up until the ending. If you read this review, please let me know what it was about. I dwelt on it for hours afterwards, trying to find something I missed. But, lo and behold, I came up zilch!

Michael Butts

Some writers write great short stories but don't translate that magic into novels. Tessier, for me, was such a writer...until now! FOGHEART blends the lyrical prose and masterful plot twists Tessier is famous for, into a book that slowly unfolds into sheer brilliance.

FOGHEART is a novel of wanting something you can't have, but willing to give up everything to try to capture and own it. It's about three couples; Oliver and Carrie, Charley and Jan and Oona and Roz.

Oliver is a firm believer in only what he sees, plus he happens to enjoy serial murder. Carrie, becomes a believer when she sees her father's ghost, naked and trying to tell her something about Oliver.

Charley is another disbeliever in the occult. His wife, Jan carries the guilt of a dead daughter on her shoulders. And a message from a seance Charley's friend attended puts them in touch with their past.

Oona is the medium who knows things nobody should know about these people. Roz is her "friend" who protects Oona after her "fits".

Oona spills the secrets of these 2 couples in scenes that Tessier describes magnificently. You actually feel the pain and torment Oona goes through to get to "the other side". Once the story starts to unravel all of the knots Tessier throws in, the pages are a blur because you want to find out what happens next. Tessier's mastery of using dialogue to move the plot is evident when Oliver hires an investigator to get into Oona's past.

The only problem with this work is the pace. It creeps very slowly until about 2/3's of the way. Then it's a fast read because all of the subplots merge together and it can be told through one character's eyes to speed it along. It's worth the wait, believe me. And the ending was one, I did not see coming but enjoyed since it fits into the layering Tessier put in the novel.

Recommended.