Possession is the indisputable peanut butter to William Peter Blatty’s chocolate. The writer who gave us the landmark THE EXORCIST returns with ELSEWHERE, a short work from Cemetery Dance that represents his first novel since 1996.
The narrative’s a little rusty at first, perhaps even a tad incredulous, as real estate agent Joan Freeboard is saddled with selling a vacant, East Coast island mansion with a storied, sordid history — one so problematic, she’s being offered triple commission. For more than 40 years, ever since its original owner killed his wife and then himself, the house has prompted possession, insanity and even suicide in its string of residents, thanks to “malevolent entities” within its walls.
To create some buzz — and this is the suspect point of the plot — she sleeps with a magazine editor to get him to agree to publish a piece on the place, written by her novelist pal, thus all but ensuring a sale. Not sure how detailing a haunted history would encourage someone to move in, but this is Blatty’s story, not mine.
For the article, Joan is to spend five nights there with NYU researcher Dr. Gabriel Case, British psychic Anna Trawley and Pulitzer Prize-winning Gothic mystery author (a bit of an oxymoron there) Terence Dare, who will chronicle all the goings-on for the VANITY FAIR-esque mag. Their hope is that Things Will Happen; boy, do they ever, and only one harkens back to Blatty’s big ol’ breakthrough.
Structurally, ELSEWHERE bears unmistakable similarities to THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, but it’s its own thing. I don’t feel like I’ve read this haunted house story before (except that, technically, I had; a few pages into it, I realized it had been published in Al Sarrantonio’s 999 horror anthology almost a decade ago). With its small size and big, fat margins, its 220 pages can be tackled and torn through in no time, although I suggest a cold, dark night for maximum effect — part of which is achieved through the occasional full-page artwork of Alex McVey, which spooks even greater than the text.
One caveat: The character of Dare is a gay man, but rendered as a swishy stereotype, who wears a Broadway PHANTOM OF THE OPERA mask, owns poodles named Pompette and Maria Hidalgo, and exclaims things like, “Dearest God, am I in heaven? Cole Porter!” That kind of portrayal became a cliché long ago.
ELSEWHERE is a minor work by Blatty, but considering he doesn’t write all that often — and I sure wish he would — his fans are all but obliged to read it. —Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon or Cemetery Dance.
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- Joan: The Mysterious Life of the Heretic Who Became a Saint
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- Kill Whitey
- Thrillers 2
