Judge this book by its cover

The Birthing House
by Christopher Ransom
Sphere pp416
ISBN-13: 978-0751541717

In a very busy book market, publishers use every available tactic to attract customers. In the UK, walking into a chain bookstore is an experience that always includes an assault on the senses. Cue shelves stacked with books written or endorsed by celebrities and seemingly random books labelled as “the new masterpiece”. Before you have even walked 20 paces, careful marketing has already told you what to buy.

This probably explains why I prefer independent bookshops – sadly, these are officially on the endangered species list where I live. Over in Malta, independent bookshops are also somewhat of a rarity, although thankfully quite a few people are still fighting for the good cause.

Which leads me to this book. Now why did I pick it? I confess, without much shame, I was instantly attracted by the blurb and the promise of a creepy story that would make my hair stand on end. The cover, on the other hand, is a very clichéd cliché. I wish I had judged this book by its cover.

Unaware of what was to follow, and excited at the prospect of a haunting tale, I settled down in bed with a steaming mug of tea, my favourite quilt (it’s England, there is no warmth) and my book. After a few pages I just couldn’t ignore that sinking feeling, but I persevered, hoping it would get better. Someday I will learn not to let hope triumph.

The blurb promises a house full of dark secrets and psychological and supernatural monsters. Admittedly, not a startlingly original plot, but in the right hands it would have definitely had potential. Instead we get the ramblings of a very odd man named Conrad Harrison (and not darkly odd, just odd) who should really have paid attention during grammar lessons at school. Sadly, he spent his time pursuing a fellow student and developed a highly improbable relationship that continues to be his obsession in adulthood.

The house in question is in Wisconsin and strikes me as a rather beautiful building that estate agents would describe as a “house of character”, but what’s “character” to me is creepy to some. Conrad Harrison stumbles on it when taking a wrong turn, and really twenty pages into the book you start wishing someone had bought him a Tom Tom. And yet, Wisconsin is a beautifully creepy place that has provided the setting for many a good novel. I would have been happy to overlook this one cliché if the story actually had a plot or characters, or if it were anything but random words on a page.

The main character, such as he is, manages to be irritating from the start. He first uproots his wife from Chicago to Wisconsin on a whim (and based on a wrong turn) and then promptly starts to seduce the neighbour’s 19-year-old pregnant daughter. I guess this is the creepy element of the novel, because his relentless pursuit of this young woman firmly falls into the realm of disgusting and creepy things.

As if this weren’t enough, he also breeds snakes while obsessing about his aforementioned improbable school romance. Clearly, his wife had her priorities right because she is never around – she’s always away on business and he keeps obsessing she is having an affair (while, of course, pursuing the neighbour’s daughter).

This is even odder when you realise that according to the blurb, Harrison is given a box of documents and assorted material relating to the house, including a Victorian photo in which he sees his wife staring at him with loathing. The modern version of his wife only reappears at the end and we never really find out the purpose of that photograph (and other assorted objects).

Then we have the other element to this novel – Leon Laski, the previous owner who had to mysteriously and quickly sell the house, embodies the stereotypical Midwest redneck. Mr Ransom does not even attempt to inject any humanity into this man. He is apparently a weird uneducated man, married to an even weirder wife and they have a brood of deformed and possibly slightly demonic children. There are comedy roadshows in the backwoods which are more sophisticated than this. By the end of the novel you are too weary to actually care about these elements. The ending is an incoherent ramble involving possession, sacrifice and the resurrection of Victorian women. At some point the town witnesses a worrying rise in pregnancies, including the aforementioned snakes. And then babies die, but by then you are too annoyed to care.

In the end I was more creeped out by my neighbour’s nocturnal singing than this book. You have to wonder what on earth publishers are thinking – why waste money on this when there are surely other authors out there who can deliver? What possessed them to pick this manuscript? Someone, possibly in a valiant attempt at attracting readers, must have realised this novel is dire and crafted an interesting blurb. The cover designer, on the other hand, was honest enough to present a cliché. Long live cover designers.

• Ms Vella Gregory is an archaeologist. She strongly believes that our heritage should be safeguarded and celebrated.

This book is available at Word for Word.