Colquitt and Walter Kennedy are dismayed when they hear that the lot next door in their wealthy Atlanta neighborhood is being built on. They have relished it as a green buffer and have been assured that no one can built on it. However, the new owners have apparently found someone who can, Kim Dougherty, a young architect. Colquitt is the first to admit that the house he builds is strikingly unusual and beautiful. In fact, she understands its beauty much better than do the owners, Pie and Buddy Harrelson. As the house goes up, Colquitt and Walter develop a friendship with Kim.
I read this novel because I heard it was a good ghost story, but it’s not a ghost story as such—rather a haunting. As the house goes up, the bodies of small animals, ripped apart, appear, including that of Pie’s puppy. Pie falls down some unprotected stairs and has a miscarriage. When Kim finishes the house and moves on to other projects, he reports being unable to work. The Kennedys think he’s just burnt out and needs a rest, but he says it’s the house, that it takes whatever you value most. Then, on the night of the Harrelsons’ house-warming party, a dreadful event occurs.
When the next family moves in. Buck and Anita Sheehan, Colquitt feels that Anita looks haunted. The neighborhood soon finds out that Anita spent time in a mental hospital after the couple’s son died in the Vietnam War. (The novel was written in the 1970s.) Soon enough, Colquitt and eventually Walter start to believe that Kim may be right about the house. The problem is what to do about it.
I am not familiar with Siddons, so I don’t know if she generally writes about the privileged. The Kennedys are not wealthy according to themselves, but they both have generous salaries and they live among the rich. There are times when the novel reflects a sort of exclusiveness and self-satisfaction that is not flagrant but is there. The Kennedys run into a class wall when they try to warn people about the house, but all this surfaces at the end in an unusual way.
The ending of this novel takes a startling turn that opens up the reader’s interpretations of the actions of the novel and makes you rethink. I think this put it higher in my regard than it would have if it had gone where I expected it to. It made me reconsider the whole story.
What? Me Read? 