The Haunt - Hardcover

Barker, A. L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786707844 ISBN 13: 9780786707843

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub, 2000

Synopsis

A bewitching tale of the loves that comfort and the longings that haunt us. With sly humor, exquisite dialogue, smooth narrative, and a cast of wholly original characters, this new book by the widely acclaimed novelist and Booker-Prize nominee A. L. Barker explores the legendary Cornish forest and examines the human heart. At the Belle Chasse, a dilapidated seaside hotel on the tip of magical Cornwall, chaos slinks behind the limited amenities, as its weekend guests soon discover - among them, a second-rate artist who's driven a malfunctioning car across England to present his ex-wife with a nude he painted of her years before; a lonely child in need of a friend; and a couple in their sixties, Elissa and Owen Grierson, long-married and now plagued by the painful longings of a no longer magical relationship. If these travelers have come to a world haunted by ancient myths of heroic quests and holy grails, they themselves pursue more ordinary dreams as they stumble over their own enigmas and eccentricities in a way that prompted Auberon Waugh to declare that A. L. Barker "writes like an angel and I love her." "It is a glorious occasion to read a new novel by an author born in 1918 and to find it startlingly fresh, daring and instructive." - Times Literary Supplement; "Almost dauntingly fresh - glancing, mercurial, elusive." - The Observer; "Marries the deadpan timing of Kingsley Amis at his driest with a tinge of eerie nature-mysticism that brings Iris Murdoch to mind.... Hot, sparkling, exciting." - The Independent.

About this title

Review:

This short, snappy thriller winds to its climax like a high-hedged country lane which leads suddenly over a steep cliff. Set in Cornwall, its main character is undoubtedly Nature, with its fecund woods, choking weeds, copses full of wild flowers that shelter half-devoured dead birds and beautiful creeks which hide forms ressembling incomplete foetuses. Elissa and Owen Grierson retire to a Cornish bungalow to escape the dirt and noise of SW19 and disguise the unsettling nature of their change in life. Unable to cope with the feral garden and dusty house, they employ Mrs Latimer, who equips them with all the local gossip necessary for full functioning in a small village. Owen is befriended by a young boy who lives next door, hoots like an owl and is neglected by his mother, Angela. This does not deter Owen from expressing dormant lustiness for her. Also lusty is artist Charlie Olssen, whose work is yet to find fiscal appreciation. He heads to Cornwall in his clapped-out car, hoping to sell a nude of his ex-wife Nina to her current husband and rekindle carnality with her. Nina was lured away from Charlie by a house, a Manderlay of a thing set amid a "webby dark of yews", where she now lives. Charlie watched her go, "struck by the thickening and thinning, running out and replenishing of the darkness under the yews. It was surreptitious." When Charlie's car breaks down, he holes up in the Bellechasse Hotel, among a cast of characters worthy of any Cluedo game.

There's a novelist-cum-agony-uncle whose real identity behind "The Listening Ear" will be revealed by an over-zealous investigative journalist called Senga, (Agnes spelt backwards) whose fate is sealed by her sartorial taste for duck print shorts early on. There's the Wallingtons, who are drained of empathy for each other and the Soulsbys who have come to Cornwall to enhance their "rapport with supernature". Then there's Gilbert Eashing, who needs a new nurse and Miss Midred Gascoigne who longs to inspire love.

A.L. Barker is a great wit with a delightful ability to evoke the quaint benevolence of English eccentrics. The plot is carefully wrought and the conclusion mapped discretely throughout. A knowing, wry read.--Cherry Smyth

Review:

With its sly, slow-burning jokes and exquisite dialogue, THE HAUNT must count among the season's funniest novels (INDEPENDENT)

She is perceptive and compassionate in her treatment of human folly, with an enviable command of contemporary fiction (LITERARY REVIEW)

Her writing is almost dauntingly fresh - glancing, mercurial, elusive (Adam Mars-Jones)

She is a quietly excellent and very English writer, who believes in fatalism as others believe in action. She deserves to be read and read again. (Anita Brookner.)

About this edition

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0786707844
• ISBN 13: 9780786707843
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 185