'A Head Full of Ghosts' by Paul Tremblay (2015).
A Head Full of Ghosts - Beware: Spoilers ahead.
This is my first non-King related post, and I've chosen this particular book because it was one of the first I read as part of my New Year's Book Resolution (part 2). I had heard about this book countless times, and became even more intrigued after listening to Paul Tremblay speaking as a guest on the Books in the Freezer podcast (which is great for your reading list and terrible for your bank balance).
A Head Full of Ghosts is a modern take on the possession sub-genre. At first glance, the premise doesn't sound particularly original; Marjorie, a teenage girl from a comfortable, middle-class family, suddenly starts behaving strangely, frightening her little sister, swearing at her parents, vomiting in her dinner. The usual. Bring in the priests, right? The only difference is that Marjorie's exorcism will be filmed, edited, and played to the nation on prime time television.
The story is told through a mix of flashbacks, present-day interview notes with Marjorie's sister Merry as she revisits the house the 'possession' took place in, and notes from a blog revisiting and reviewing the TV program. I thought the blog posts were the most interesting sections of the book, written in a sarcastic, disbelieving tone which increases the believability of the plot overall.
Who's who?
The main character, Meredith 'Merry' Barrett, is a fairly neutral character, neither likeable or annoying. The majority of the narrative is a story within a story; older Merry relating her memories of the events of her traumatic childhood to an author hoping to create a novel out of it. Telling the story from the perspective of a child notches up the fear factor a little, and the novel needs it - its pace occasionally borders, I think quite intentionally, on glacial.
Marjorie is a much more nuanced, difficult to place character. Tremblay has us questioning constantly - Is she really possessed? Is she evil, regardless of demon inhabitation? Which are lies and which are truths? It's this last question which is the most effectively dealt with, particularly when placed alongside the nastiness of the reality TV madness surrounding the family. It is constantly unclear to what extent the drama and scariness is 'made for television', and to what extent it is genuine.
Tremblay does a pretty good job of writing the two young sisters, I assume in the main because he has two young daughters himself, and is a high school mathematics teacher. You can tell; the reactions and behaviour of the characters feels right; Marjorie is grumpy, rude, sullen, but with occasional outbursts of sweetness, just as teenage girls often are, Merry is funny, a little clingy, and cute, just as eight year olds should be. The relationship between the two is similarly well done, and makes Marjorie's cruelty to her little sister much more difficult to read.
The characters I struggled with more were the parents. I will start here by saying a big part of that was probably more to do with the audiobook than the novel itself. The lady who narrated it had a rather irritating habit of dramatically lowering her voice when reading the father's lines, and rather than making her sound masculine, it turned her into Macauley Culkin doing his grown up impression when he calls the cops at the end of Home Alone. I just couldn't get past it, and the mother wasn't much better; her voice had been dropped significantly to show the difference between her and the girls, and she ended up sounding constantly seductive.
I also didn't really like either of the parents. I understand this is intentional for the father, John, who comes across as a religious nut half the time and an opportunistic bastard the rest, but I didn't warm to Sarah, the mother, either. She feels cold and uncaring, and together as a couple they are an argumentative mess who seem more interested in taking bites out of each other than taking a proper look at their daughters.
Reality (?) TV
The blog, and its blogger, Karen, was, as I've mentioned, the bit I found most interesting about this, partly because I could imagine reading one like it myself. It made me want to watch the show 'The Possession', which then gave me uncomfortable pause about having any kind of moral high-ground. The blog is scathing in its criticism of the show, and provides an interesting balance to the first-hand account, swaying us between believing and not, unable to decide for certain what is real. The eventual reveal of Merry as the blog's secret author adds to our sense of unreality and confusion.
The concept that moves this novel away from the standard possession stories isn't actually explored
enough. There are so many juicy, morally uncomfortable ideas that never quite get a proper airing. What does it say about our society that a show about a group of men essentially assaulting a teenage girl would probably be viewed by millions? What does it say about us, the readers, that we are horribly intrigued by it ourselves?
We are also forced to question the global phenomenon of reality television more generally, and perhaps the timing of my reading made this particularly relevant. In the last few years, several reality TV stars and presenters have died tragic, self-inflicted deaths. It is so easy for us as viewers to fictionalise the lives of the people we watch, and to forget that their mistakes and heartbreak are as real as anyone else's, and broadcast to the world for extra humiliation. To say they knew what they were signing up for is a cop out. TV preys on the vulnerable, and we should know better. In A Head Full of Ghosts, where the main focus of the exploitative show is a child, there is really no excuse, and the making of us, as readers, complicit in her abuse, is very uncomfortable.
How does it read?
Where the book fell down for me was its pacing, which is, at times, tortoise-slow. There were many occasions when I had to make use of Audible's thirty second repeat function because I'd become distracted. Much of this had to do with my own expectations of the book; when I heard 'possession story', I think I was expecting a fast paced, terrifying roller-coaster, and A Head Full Of Ghosts is not that. It's a creepy (very) slow-burner, and is more about the disintegration of the family unit than the mechanics of the 'possession' itself.
What picked this novel and its rating up for me was its ending, which absolutely knocked me for six. The build up to a devastating and yet understated horror is incredibly well done, and when placed at the end of such a subtle, often mundane story, totally threw me. It was the first time in the story that I truly felt for one of the characters - Merry's hopeful calls to her parents and sister were heartbreaking, as was her realisation of the trick that had been played on her. The big question of the ending also haunted me; did Marjorie do it to Merry, or for Merry?
How do I rate it?
This was a tricky one. There were moments in this book I could have ripped out and thrown in the bin without any noticeable effect of the story, and bits that I'd go back and read again. This is a real novel of two halves.
A Head Full of Ghosts - 7/10
Overall, A Head Full of Ghosts is a better than average, original take on the possession theme. That ending, though. That ending stayed with me for days. Because of that, I'm giving it a 7/10. Well worth a read and with enough clout that I'll try another Tremblay.
This is my first non-King related post, and I've chosen this particular book because it was one of the first I read as part of my New Year's Book Resolution (part 2). I had heard about this book countless times, and became even more intrigued after listening to Paul Tremblay speaking as a guest on the Books in the Freezer podcast (which is great for your reading list and terrible for your bank balance).
A Head Full of Ghosts is a modern take on the possession sub-genre. At first glance, the premise doesn't sound particularly original; Marjorie, a teenage girl from a comfortable, middle-class family, suddenly starts behaving strangely, frightening her little sister, swearing at her parents, vomiting in her dinner. The usual. Bring in the priests, right? The only difference is that Marjorie's exorcism will be filmed, edited, and played to the nation on prime time television.
The story is told through a mix of flashbacks, present-day interview notes with Marjorie's sister Merry as she revisits the house the 'possession' took place in, and notes from a blog revisiting and reviewing the TV program. I thought the blog posts were the most interesting sections of the book, written in a sarcastic, disbelieving tone which increases the believability of the plot overall.
Who's who?
Marjorie is a much more nuanced, difficult to place character. Tremblay has us questioning constantly - Is she really possessed? Is she evil, regardless of demon inhabitation? Which are lies and which are truths? It's this last question which is the most effectively dealt with, particularly when placed alongside the nastiness of the reality TV madness surrounding the family. It is constantly unclear to what extent the drama and scariness is 'made for television', and to what extent it is genuine.
Tremblay does a pretty good job of writing the two young sisters, I assume in the main because he has two young daughters himself, and is a high school mathematics teacher. You can tell; the reactions and behaviour of the characters feels right; Marjorie is grumpy, rude, sullen, but with occasional outbursts of sweetness, just as teenage girls often are, Merry is funny, a little clingy, and cute, just as eight year olds should be. The relationship between the two is similarly well done, and makes Marjorie's cruelty to her little sister much more difficult to read.
The characters I struggled with more were the parents. I will start here by saying a big part of that was probably more to do with the audiobook than the novel itself. The lady who narrated it had a rather irritating habit of dramatically lowering her voice when reading the father's lines, and rather than making her sound masculine, it turned her into Macauley Culkin doing his grown up impression when he calls the cops at the end of Home Alone. I just couldn't get past it, and the mother wasn't much better; her voice had been dropped significantly to show the difference between her and the girls, and she ended up sounding constantly seductive.
I also didn't really like either of the parents. I understand this is intentional for the father, John, who comes across as a religious nut half the time and an opportunistic bastard the rest, but I didn't warm to Sarah, the mother, either. She feels cold and uncaring, and together as a couple they are an argumentative mess who seem more interested in taking bites out of each other than taking a proper look at their daughters.
Reality (?) TVThe blog, and its blogger, Karen, was, as I've mentioned, the bit I found most interesting about this, partly because I could imagine reading one like it myself. It made me want to watch the show 'The Possession', which then gave me uncomfortable pause about having any kind of moral high-ground. The blog is scathing in its criticism of the show, and provides an interesting balance to the first-hand account, swaying us between believing and not, unable to decide for certain what is real. The eventual reveal of Merry as the blog's secret author adds to our sense of unreality and confusion.
The concept that moves this novel away from the standard possession stories isn't actually explored
enough. There are so many juicy, morally uncomfortable ideas that never quite get a proper airing. What does it say about our society that a show about a group of men essentially assaulting a teenage girl would probably be viewed by millions? What does it say about us, the readers, that we are horribly intrigued by it ourselves?
We are also forced to question the global phenomenon of reality television more generally, and perhaps the timing of my reading made this particularly relevant. In the last few years, several reality TV stars and presenters have died tragic, self-inflicted deaths. It is so easy for us as viewers to fictionalise the lives of the people we watch, and to forget that their mistakes and heartbreak are as real as anyone else's, and broadcast to the world for extra humiliation. To say they knew what they were signing up for is a cop out. TV preys on the vulnerable, and we should know better. In A Head Full of Ghosts, where the main focus of the exploitative show is a child, there is really no excuse, and the making of us, as readers, complicit in her abuse, is very uncomfortable.
How does it read?
Where the book fell down for me was its pacing, which is, at times, tortoise-slow. There were many occasions when I had to make use of Audible's thirty second repeat function because I'd become distracted. Much of this had to do with my own expectations of the book; when I heard 'possession story', I think I was expecting a fast paced, terrifying roller-coaster, and A Head Full Of Ghosts is not that. It's a creepy (very) slow-burner, and is more about the disintegration of the family unit than the mechanics of the 'possession' itself.What picked this novel and its rating up for me was its ending, which absolutely knocked me for six. The build up to a devastating and yet understated horror is incredibly well done, and when placed at the end of such a subtle, often mundane story, totally threw me. It was the first time in the story that I truly felt for one of the characters - Merry's hopeful calls to her parents and sister were heartbreaking, as was her realisation of the trick that had been played on her. The big question of the ending also haunted me; did Marjorie do it to Merry, or for Merry?
How do I rate it?
This was a tricky one. There were moments in this book I could have ripped out and thrown in the bin without any noticeable effect of the story, and bits that I'd go back and read again. This is a real novel of two halves.
A Head Full of Ghosts - 7/10
Overall, A Head Full of Ghosts is a better than average, original take on the possession theme. That ending, though. That ending stayed with me for days. Because of that, I'm giving it a 7/10. Well worth a read and with enough clout that I'll try another Tremblay.
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