Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
Who can protect you from something that shouldn't exist?
In an ordinary house, on an ordinary street, lives an ordinary family.
Mommy and Daddo tuck their little girl, Bela, into bed for the night and leave her to fall asleep.
That’s when Other Mommy comes out of Bela’s closet and asks if she can go inside Bela’s heart.
But that’s not even the creepiest part… Other Mommy has been visiting Bela each night for as long as Bela can remember. Usually, Other Mommy is friendly. Sometimes her face moves around her head. Recently, Other Mommy has become increasingly sinister, pressing Bela to provide her the means to reincarnate.
If only Bela will answer yes to her constant question, “Will you let me go inside your heart?”
At first glance, Incidents Around the House sounds similar to many other horror novels in which a family is tormented by some form of ghost or possession. It wasn’t so long ago that I read A Head Full of Ghosts, which, like Incidents Around the House, employs a young child as a narrator. Fortunately, both books are entirely different beasts that excel on their own terms.
In this compelling book, eight-year-old Bela is the sole narrator — meaning we are witness to everything through her perspective. This understandably adds to the horror of the text through countless means: Bela’s sheer innocence in the face of supernatural evil, her obliviousness to certain threats, her casual observation of the way a demon rests their hands when we’re screaming at her to run away…
Run away. Is that what one should do when faced with a malevolent entity haunting your house and child? What would you do if you were in this family’s place?
That’s the central idea Incidents Around the House plays with once Bela’s parents become aware of — and witness for themselves — Other Mommy; if such a horror scenario were to occur in real life, what would you do? What could you do?
The family tries to run, but Other Mommy follows them wherever they go. They turn to priests, to occultists, to new-age hippies… Desperate for aid from anyone who might be able to provide them. But, in reality, would anyone really believe them, unless they too saw it with their own eyes?
It’s a darkly ironic problem, and it is wonderfully explored in this book.
Added to the family’s paranormal woes are also the mundane sort of challenges that any regular, non-haunted family might face (most notably, there is a subplot about Mommy who is so restless in her easy suburban life that she indulges in an affair). Bela is being visited by an unnatural entity in her bed each night, but everyone has their own cross to bear. There’s a lot going on, but it’s all handled extremely well.
Bela’s voice is strong and clear throughout, and the fact that the entire novel is written from her point of view — and contains her minute observations of places, situations, and especially her simplistic interpretations of actually incredibly complex emotions — only makes this book’s wallop that much more potent.
Incidents Around the House is an incredibly creepy, riveting, and emotionally-charged horror novel.