#Review - The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell

The Whispering Muse
Laura Purcell
Bloomsbury Raven, 2 February 2023
Available as: HB, 293pp, audio, e
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781526627186

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of The Whispering Muse via Netgalley to consider for review.

The Whispering Muse is an absolutely top-rate historical horror which makes some trenchant points about women's lives being bent out of shape by the society - and especially the men - around them. As I've come to expect from Purcell, we're given nuanced, layered horror, deeply coiled around human lives and circumstances - but also, moments of shocking, scary climax as those human lives crumple and break. It's a heady mixture, making every page both a 'must read' and a 'dare I read?'

Jenny is trying to hold together her family - comprising only her younger brothers and sisters, as their parents are both dead - and is desperate for any work she can get. An offer of a role as a dresser at the Mercury Theatre comes as welcome news, but it will soon bring Jenny face to face with divided loyalties, the prospect of ruin, and indeed utter terror when the company embark on a production of 'The Scottish Play'.

All Jenny's problems trace back, in one way or another, to the men around her. Formerly a lady's maid, she lost her place because of the feckless behaviour of one of those men. Another of them, the manager of the theatre. seems to be taking too close an interest in one of the actresses, but inevitably things go wrong and he demands Jenny's help in managing the situation. Meanwhile, his wife also expects Jenny to break up the relationship (or else). And just when it seems things can't get any worse, another man from Jenny's past turns up threatening to break up her little family.

I loved just how complicated things became for Jenny, but particularly her relationship with that actress - Lilith - to whom she's appointed as dresser. The two women have very different outlooks - Lilith daringly Bohemian, ambitious, willing to flout Victorian morality (but, if she wants her career to progress, does she have any choice?) Jenny more conventional, perhaps, as shown when she's told to turn round three times, spit, and swear because she said 'Macbeth' - and she can't bring herself to do it.

The most moving moments of the book, in counterpoint to the gothic horror, are those when these two women are learning to trust one another,  to get to know each other.  That doesn't always turn out well, indeed little in this book turns out well, but possibilities open then, experiences are shared and alternative futures open up.

Those moments of respite never last long, though - there is a drumbeat in The Whispering Muse and it is a drumbeat of terror, horror stalking the theatre and its unfortunate cast and crew. What seems at the start like theatrical whimsy and self-indulgence - I thought of the Blackadder parody of that spitting-and-turning round thing - comes back to claim a price, as events grow progressively darker. That darkness is only pointed up by a sort of disjointed reaction from the wider world to the horror taking place. There is a prurient interest in what happens (not going to spell out what that is because spoilers) but a distinct lack of concern, of empathy, with those affected by it. (An attitude I think sadly true to life, not only of the Victorian era but of those since and up to the present day - it would be easy to imagine the cursed Lilith racking up huge numbers of social media followers, rather than stage door Johnnies, all to abandon her as she crashed and burned).

In the end though, and despite The Whispering Muse deploying quite the tide of gory horror (it features productions of both Faust - in two different versions - and MacBeth) I think it's actually in may respects  hopeful book, both showing ways in which solidarity and fellowship can defeat, or at least elude, power, and celebrating human companionship and love.

For more information about The Whispering Muse, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - A Pair of Nightjars

Cover photo by Nicholas Royle

Tower Block Ghost Story
TSJ Harling
Nightjar Press, April 2021
Available as: PB, 16pp
Source: Subscription
ISBN: 9781907341533

 

My Nightjar Press subscription is one of my favourite things I've spent money on recently, providing me with regular short stories told from a variety of viewpoints and across genres, but always beautifully written, sharp and with that sense of haunting the imagination, even after you have finished reading. Here are two that I've read recently.

Doing just what it says on the cover, Tower Block Ghost Story abandons traditional gothic trappings, placing its brilliantly-paced narrative of unease and unrest into a setting of concrete stairwells, urine-smelling lifts and double front door locks.

Here Sade is living with her 'handsome boyfriend' and with fibromyalgia, sometimes only managing to move between the bed ands the sofa. She's alone in the flat most of the time, so she notice things.

Sounds. Items out of place. Sudden draughts.

The supernatural is introduced in a rather matter-of-fact way - from the first sentence - so we know what to expect. But we DON'T know what to expect, as Sade picks away to discover what - or who - is sharing her living space with her. Drawing out the tension from page to page, Harling keeps the reader on the hook almost to the end, delivering a superbly creepy and empathetic glimpse of the supernatural, more disturbing for the contrast with the absolutely mundane - with the real hooks of the horror the link with everyday, not supernatural, evil.

Cover photo by Nicholas Royle

The Elevator

Imogen Reid

Nightjar Press, April 2021

Available as: PB, 11pp

Source: Subscription

ISBN: 9781907341557

The Elevator has a haunting beauty all of its own. Opening with the (never named) narrator entering the elevator of the title, pursued (perhaps) by a staggering man, we feel their need for escape even if not understanding why. 

The escape is a journey illuminated by fluorescent lights, surrounded by metallic surfaces, accompanied hints of blood (whose?) and by that pursuer, who seems to be following the lift on a surrounding spiral staircase. The claustrophobic atmosphere inside gives way to memories of a room which seems the elevator's twin, descriptions, features and memories of one echoing the other.

There is a story here - told in glimpses of memory, the contents of a bag strewn over the floor of the lift, the recollection of an old Bakelite telephone - but it's presented in dreamlike logic, or as a puzzle to be worked over.

Deeply atmospheric, this story seemed poised between noirish atmosphere and a clinging, almost Gothic, atmosphere of horror and entrapment (will the narrator ever get away or do they remain in a loop?) It gave me a lot to think about, but even more to feel.

You can buy Tower Block Ghost Story from Nightjar Press here and The Elevator here.

 

Mistletoe Berries - A Ghost Story from Ambridge

Until 2013, the BBC hosted a lively messageboard for The Archers, their long-running radio soap set in the fictional English village of Ambridge.  Among other things, it encouraged listeners to post Archers parodies and fantasies (Archers fanfic, I suppose, though I never saw the term used) and I contributed a few from 2006 onwards, writing as vicarshusband. Mine included crossovers between The Archers and Biggles, Doctor Who and Dad's Army as well as a parody of the WB Yeats poem The Death of Cuchulain - and some ghost stories.

A couple of years ago I saved all the ones that I could find and put them on this very blog in their own tab. I'm disinterring this one now as next week the BBC are actually doing some "Ghost Stories from Ambridge" and also as a small tribute to Edward Kelsey, the actor who played Joe Grundy and who died earlier this year. (And because it's seasonal!)

For context, I wrote this referring to a then current storyline in which Joe was selling mistletoe (harvested, of course, illicitly) and performing "Druidic" rites (for cash, of course).

Mistletoe Berries

Joe Grundy opened the back door of Keeper's Cottage very, very cautiously and peered out. Nobody was in sight. He scuttled out - as much as a man in his late 80s can be said to scuttle - and made for the shed. Try as he might, he couldn't shake off the sensation of being... watched. To a man with as many past and present scams and dodges on his conscience as Joe had, this was a far from welcome feeling. (The word "conscience" should not be taken to imply any sense of guilt, rather a fervent desire Not To Be Caught. Especially not by Clarrie. Or by Jim Lloyd, bother him.)

Once Joe had reached the shed, he soothed his nerves with a spot of cider and tried to remember when the feeling began, but it was hopeless. 'Pull yourself together, Joe' he told himself. 'What would your Susan say if she could see you?' The thought of his departed wife watching him did not bring the comfort it ought to, and he took another gulp of cider, before slipping the bottle of Tumble Tussock into the poacher's pocket of his long coat and collecting up his Druid outfit. Although he had - nearly - promised Jim that his days of Druidry were over, he had one or two appointments, made beforehand, to keep, and it was only nearly a promise. A man deserved a little bit of money to spend down the Bull when it was cold and his farmer's lung (cough) was bothering him, didn't he?

Joe set out down the lane, then took the short cut through the field. He had known these fields and paths all his life and could walk them near blindfold. His knowledge had served him well many times when there had been a need to avoid gamekeepers or other trouble. But he didn't feel at home as he usually did. There was that sense again of watching, and waiting. His shook his head impatiently. Cut across the back here -

Joe stopped. There was a small clump of trees in front of him which he didn't remember. Must have missed the gap in the hedge - but no, there was the Am. It was that Brian Aldridge, no doubt he'd been planting more trees to get a green subsidy or such. There'd been no green subsidies for the Grundys when they were at Grange Farm. Wasn't fair, all the money went to the Aldridges and the Archers.

He made towards the trees. As he came closer, he saw that there were little lights among them, and he seemed to hear voices. Perhaps best leave well alone, it might be Jamie and some of his nasty mates. Joe tried to stop, but it was if he had been lifted up by a host of invisible hands, carrying him closer and closer to the circle of trees, set atop a mound that definitely hadn't been in the field that morning. Joe seemed to hear laughter, and faint hoofbeats.

As he entered - or rather, was flung into - the ring, Joe saw, by the light of a small fire, a seated figure. It was an ancient man, dressed in a garment made all of green leaves. He had a long, white beard and wore a garland set with small, white berries. Mistletoe berries. Behind this figure, Joe though he saw little, flickering creatures that seemed to dart around like licking flames. When he looked directly at them, he saw nothing. But the sense of being watched returned tenfold.

'Joseph Grundy!' boomed the figure

'Your honour?' replied Joe 'What do you want with me? I'm only a poor farmer!'

'Joseph Grundy!' repeated the figure 'You have taken the golden sickle, and sung the growing song to the trees in the midst of winter. There is a price to be paid.'

'It were only a bit of fun' said Joe. 'Didn't mean no harm by it'

'Harm!' replied the other, rising from his throne. 'You have woken the Sleepers from the Nine Mounds. The Maidens have risen from the seven pools. The Three...'

'Now' said Joe 'it was all a misunderstanding, that's all. But seeing as I'm here, perhaps you'd care to join me in a drop of cider, and we can talk about it.'  He pulled the bottle out of his pocket, and offered it 'And there's more where that come from. And why don't you just invite them Seven Maidens over an' all...' (this accompanied by a filthy wink).

Lights and music drifted through the village all that night, but nobody woke to look for the disturbance or complain about it, not even Lynda Snell.

And when Joe woke the next morning in his bed, he thought that he had had the strangest dream - until he saw the mistletoe berries scattered about on the floor.