House of Many Shadows (1974)
Listening: Time in a Bottle
After Meg Rittenhouse has an accident that leaves her experiencing hallucinations, a wealthy distant cousin offers her a recuperative stay at her old Pennsylvanian house, Trail's End. At first, it seems like an excellent idea--caretaker, would-be writer and former childhood nemesis Andy Brenner is plenty of company, and the task of sorting the attic and redecorating the house keep Meg distracted. But it seems like her hallucinations are getting worse, not better, as she sees images of a family from a different time over and over again...unless the people she's seeing aren't hallucinations at all, but rather images from the past. If that's true, is the ugly fate they're racing towards about to find its way out of the past and into the present?
Spoilers Below
Spoilers Below
House is a personal favorite in some ways. It's creepy and delightful, and it's that formula MPM does so well that we've seen in Ammie and Child before. Old house...bickering young couple...mysterious ghosts...an old, unsolved murder...It makes it hard to actually think of anything original to say, when I feel perhaps I've said all that I have that is original on its predecessors.
Nonetheless, I think there are points worth expanding on. The story is situated in Pennsylvania Dutch country, allowing MPM to crow over what I suspect was a beloved hobby--antiques. She also works her love for embroidery in as well, as Meg picks up the habit in an effort to copy the beautiful sampler she finds. I also wonder if foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, antique dealer Georgia is a stand-in for MPM herself. These older, happily independent women who own their eccentric lifestyles with pride become more and more a facet of her books, as minor characters if not the main ones (as in Jake Kirby novels, for instance). If so, I can only applaud MPM's growing self-love and contentment.
The overall plot and mystery is rather clever--the brutal murder of the Hubers, and the way Meg and Andy act as conduits for some of the attendant emotions allows for a discussion on guilt and self-forgiveness. The suicide of an old girlfriend, whose plea for help Andy ignored, leaves him open to suffer through the centuries old agonies of the lover who came to rescue the Hubers too late. The alchemical workings of old Christian Huber, which makes the ghostly visions possible, hark back to classic MPM discussions on small town preoccupations with condemning intelligent thinkers, both in the past and present.
Favorite Line: "Barraged by TV commercials that imply that dirty collars are more disgraceful than infanticide, infected by the ancestral Calvinist doctrine that puts cleanliness next to godliness--no wonder women slaved over dishes and T-shirts that would be dirty again the next day. They were brainwashed by a deadly combinations of advertising and outdated morality."
Rating: ***
Nonetheless, I think there are points worth expanding on. The story is situated in Pennsylvania Dutch country, allowing MPM to crow over what I suspect was a beloved hobby--antiques. She also works her love for embroidery in as well, as Meg picks up the habit in an effort to copy the beautiful sampler she finds. I also wonder if foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, antique dealer Georgia is a stand-in for MPM herself. These older, happily independent women who own their eccentric lifestyles with pride become more and more a facet of her books, as minor characters if not the main ones (as in Jake Kirby novels, for instance). If so, I can only applaud MPM's growing self-love and contentment.
The overall plot and mystery is rather clever--the brutal murder of the Hubers, and the way Meg and Andy act as conduits for some of the attendant emotions allows for a discussion on guilt and self-forgiveness. The suicide of an old girlfriend, whose plea for help Andy ignored, leaves him open to suffer through the centuries old agonies of the lover who came to rescue the Hubers too late. The alchemical workings of old Christian Huber, which makes the ghostly visions possible, hark back to classic MPM discussions on small town preoccupations with condemning intelligent thinkers, both in the past and present.
Favorite Line: "Barraged by TV commercials that imply that dirty collars are more disgraceful than infanticide, infected by the ancestral Calvinist doctrine that puts cleanliness next to godliness--no wonder women slaved over dishes and T-shirts that would be dirty again the next day. They were brainwashed by a deadly combinations of advertising and outdated morality."
Rating: ***
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