Blue-Footed Musings

Someone in the House by Barbara Michaels

Grade: B+

Anne is a feminist. Her boyfriend is anything but. When he goes abroad to pursue a work opportunity over the summer, she decides not to go with him, thinking a break from him is just what she needs. Plus, she already has an agreement to collaborate on a literary textbook with coworker Kevin, and she doesn’t want to break that commitment. Kevin has to house-sit his parents’ recently purchased home, but he invites her to stay with him for the summer so that they can finally get cracking on that book, and she accepts.

The house is “a medieval English manor house, perfect in every detail,” set in “a green cup of valley, surrounded on all sides by wooded slopes” in Pennsylvania. It is grand and ancient, with origins traceable all the way back to Ye Merrie Olde England, from which a previous owner moved it. It’s big enough for Anne and Kevin, assorted cats and dogs, and Kevin’s recently divorced aunt all to settle into comfortably without ever having to see one another unless they want to. They (the humans, that is) spend their days on enjoyable pursuits such as swimming, playing tennis, and reading. Anne is a fan of Agatha Christie, BTW, and she struggles with that very common need to explain why.

Among the newer books in the library were several shelves of detective stories, including a complete collection of Agatha Christie, which I was devouring. I had never realized what soothing late-night reading they provided. The formalized mayhem and the routine procession of suspects, interrogated in the most suave manner by the amateur detective, were so far removed from the brutalities of real crime that they had no deleterious effect on the nerves. . . . I felt a little embarrassed at wallowing in crime now, that was why I had smuggled a stack of Christies to my room. Literature they emphatically were not. Slick superficial style, cardboard characters, improbably plot devices. So why, O critic, are you enjoying them so much?

Anne is not the only one with a secret, guilty pleasure. She and Aunt Bea discover that Kevin is getting some rather loud and otherworldy action (i.e., ghost nookie) at night, though he seems to have no memory of it during the day. With the help and advice of newfound friend Roger and minister Stephen, they investigate the house’s history and try to unlock the secrets behind the ghostly visitations. Anne and Kevin develop a romantic relationship along the way (ooh, her boyfriend is not going to like that!). Bea and Roger also have a thing going on. There’s no mate for Stephen, but he’s got God, and it looks like a happy ending is in the works.

But this book is up and down, back and forth, not quite sure where it’s going. The ghost is scary one moment, nearly forgotten the next, which is confusing, though it makes more sense once you get to the bizarre, anti-climatic twist at the end. [spoiler ahead] Anne comes to the conclusion that there isn’t really a ghost. The house is, in its own way, sentient and the ghost is its way of trying to please its residents. All along Anne has felt a friendly presence, a peacefulness, and a willingness to forget about her troubles and about the outside world. This, Anne now realizes, is the house’s doing. And because of that, she can’t be certain that she and Kevin really love each other (it may just be the house’s influence). So she leaves. Kevin doesn’t follow. Later she finds out from Bea that he’s engaged to someone else. She is haunted by the memories of her time at the house and the thought that she might have thrown away true love.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked Anne and Bea but disliked the other characters. There was too little action and too much time was spent on red herrings. The final crisis of the story arrived late. Anne’s realization of what was going on felt too sudden and needed a better set-up. I also had an persistent sense of deja-vu while reading, which was sometimes pleasant and sometimes annoying, because I wasn’t sure if I had read the book before (certainly possible) or if I was simply recognizing common elements from other Barbara Michaels’ novels (also possible). The ending was a let-down, but also deliciously appropriate for a character like Anne’s. She clung to her independence, and she paid for it.

All things considered, I enjoyed reading Someone in the House, but I wanted a little more from it. I suspect that I will remember it fondly. I am even tempted to keep the book just in case I feel like reading it again someday. But, though there are a lot of likeable things about the story, I do not think it is worth rereading, which is why I gave it a B+ grade.

P.S. While double-checking something on Wikipedia before posting this review, I discovered what was probably causing my feeling of deja-vu. Wikipedia treats Someone in the House (1981) as part of a two-book series along with Black Rainbow (1982), which I read a few years ago. Presumably the house is the same in both, and that explains a lot. Now I wish I’d read them in the order written, because they would have been back-to-back and the relationship obvious.

Oh, well. Too late now! I have only six unread Barbara Michaels novels left. Up next is The Wizard’s Daughter (1980).

Today is the last day of February. My plan was to have finished both of my February reading choices by now. I read Akata Witch first, because it was obviously going to be the easier and quicker of the two. It was good, and I was happy that I had chosen it.

Then I started reading Black Leopard, Red Wolf, and OMG, I have never felt so betrayed by book blurbs and reviews. Critics and other authors raved over this book, saying that it was “revolutionary,” “spectacular,” and “gripping.” They put it on Top 100 lists. Oprah’s magazine even recommended it. I wish now that I had also read some of the everyday readers’ reviews before buying the book, because a lot of them used completely different words to describe it. They said it was full of violence, murder, and rape, and that it was “vulgar,” “vile,” and “horrifying.”

I’m siding with those everyday reviewers, and I think everyone ought to have given fair warning about the violence. I can tolerate a certain amount of violence in fiction, but Black Leopard, Red Wolf immediately started to bother me. Less than 20 pages in, and I was already disgusted. I’ve tried for a week or more to convince myself to pick it up again, but I don’t think I have the stomach for it. There are a lot of one- and two-star reviews suggesting that I shouldn’t try. The book isn’t going to change, and neither am I.

So, I am going to read a collection of Rita Dove poems as a substitute, once it arrives. In the meantime, I’m reading something completely different: Dog on It by Spencer Quinn. It’s a mystery told from the point of view of a dog. It’s not entirely nonviolent, but it’s endearingly stupid, just like the average dog. I love it so far.

This week I am working on clearing out the draft folder of my blog. So, late though it is, here is a post I wrote about reading in 2020.

By the Numbers

1. I read more books in 2020 (41) than I did in 2019 (33). Note: I had previously declared my reading total for 2020 to be 40, but as I was checking to see which Hercule Poirot novels I hadn’t yet read, I realized that I’d read one in 2020 that I hadn’t recorded on the list.
2. I read no nonfiction in 2020, perhaps because circumstances made escapism seem a lot more important than education. I hope that won’t become the new norm.
3. I gave A-level grades to roughly half of the books (you can read about my favorites from the year here). I’m not sure if all those high grades mean that I was lucky in my reading choices or that pandemic desperation made me more willing to be pleased. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Overall it was a pleasant reading year, but over the course of the year I threw away three books. Yes, I literally threw them in the trash! The first was a book that reeked so strongly of perfume that I couldn’t tolerate handling it. I had neither the heart to try to de-stink the toxic thing nor the willingness to foist it off on some other reader, so I threw it out. The second was an old paperback that fell apart as I was reading it (for the record, it was Ngaio Marsh’s Tied Up in Tinsel). Its pages were foxed and tanned, not good recycling material. The story itself was so annoying that I didn’t even finish it. Throwing it into the trash was the only satisfaction I got from it. And the third book had dead bugs and what looked like a tiny cocoon in it, so the trash was the only place for it. Such are the perils of buying used books.

I haven’t given up the practice, though. I developed a book-buying habit early in the year and never quite managed to quit it. At first, it was because we couldn’t get books from the library, which had locked down along with the rest of the state. But later, after the library reopened, I continued to buy a lot of books, perhaps because they were the only “people” I was allowed to bring into my home, and surrounding myself with them meant there would be no shortage of company when I needed it. I didn’t have enough room for them, it’s true, but I was glad (and still am) to have them.

Now it’s time to focus on reading in 2021. My goals for the year are broad. I’d like to read more nonfiction and more poetry. I’d like to read more books from outside my “reading bubble.” But mostly I’d just like to read more, and I wish everyone, myself included, an plentiful year of reading.

February, for such a short month, is a jam-packed one. It’s got two holidays, plus a week of school vacation, and it’s also Black History Month. The month flies by quickly, and sometimes it seems like everything is happening at the same time, and sometimes it is! Valentine’s Day is on Sunday, and it is also my dearest friend’s birthday. Presidents’ Day is on Monday, and it’s also the first day of the aforementioned week of school vacation.

As for the Black History aspect of the month, like last year, my intention is to actively celebrate by reading fiction written by black authors. Obviously, all months are good months for reading books by black authors, but if your reading isn’t as diverse as it should be, February is a convenient reminder to do something about that. So here are two books that I have chosen to read this month:

I finished reading Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline on Wednesday. The best things about the book are . . .

1. It continues the story of the characters from Ready Player One, which is nice for anyone with an interest in reading about what happens to Wade Watts and his friends after winning Halliday’s prize.
2. It has a happy, at least on the surface, ending that is a real ending and not merely the lead-in to another sequel.
3. This quote:

Kira always said that life is like an extremely difficult, horribly unbalanced videogame. . . . Your body is your avatar, and you spawn in a random geographic location, at a random moment in human history, surrounded by a random group of people, and then you have to try to survive for as long as you can. . . . Some people play the game for a hundred years without ever figuring out that it’s a game, or that there is a way to win it. To win the videogame of life you just have to try to make the experience of being forced to play it as pleasant as possible, for yourself, and for all the other players you encounter in your travels. Kira says that if everyone played the game to win, it’d be a lot more fun for everyone.

The worst things about it are, sadly, just about everything else. The impression the book gives is that the author was encouraged to repeat the formula from the first book and to do it fast, fast, fast. And it seems as if he tried to recreate the magic from the first book while also correcting some of the flaws, but without really understanding which was which. The result is a tedious read that manages to spoil even some of the magic from the first book. If you want to read more about it, I recommend this review, which explains some aspects of it much better than I could, from Slate.com: “From the perspective of anyone but Wade, Ready Player Two is a horror story that thinks it is a fantasy, narrated by a monster who thinks he is the hero.”