I will preface this whole review by saying, this is the first book on the "Fright List" that has actually been true to its hype. I've been looking forward to reading this one ever since I got my grubby little paws on it. I withheld reading it right away because I felt this one for sure was going to be good, and I didn't want to jump right in with the best one and then be constantly disappointed with the others on the list. So you see, I indulged in disappointment in the beginning, had a good story in the middle, and maybe I'll be wrought with more disappointment in the stories to come. Who's to say?
The POV is told by a grown-up little sister, Merry, who is helping a non-fiction writer write the story of her family. The story revolves around the Barrett family, a quiet New England family with two girls, one of which, newly teen aged Marjorie is thought to be a schizo. Then again, aren't most teenage girls considered schizo, in one form or another? All those hormones, all the drama! It's a wonder anyone gets out alive, but I digress.
Dad has been out of work for over a year. Of course this adds stress onto any family. With a seemingly crazy daughter, and therapist bills adding up, shit gets real, real quick. Marjorie and little sister Merry are inseparable. Now, I know this is fiction because what 14 year old wants to hang out with her younger sister? Marjorie progressively does weirder and weirder shit, which leads her church going father to believe that she might possibly be possessed by a demonic spirit. Again, we're talking about a 14 year girl, of course she does weird shit.
With all the oddities and thoughts of their child being possessed, sure enough some story tellers and television producers come sniffing around looking to make a buck. Mom and Dad confer and decide that the family could really use some extra money, and this is just the thing to get them out of the hole. They agree to let a camera crew come in and follow their family around 24/7 with the hopes of catching some of the said "weird shit" on camera and making a series out of it. Reality TV is all the rage right now, right?
As time goes on, as we read about Marjorie and Merry confiding in each other, being sisterly, all that fun stuff. Marjorie comes into Merry's room in the middle of the night and pinches her nose shut until she gasps for air, writes gruesome stories to her in the notebook they share back and forth, you know, typical sibling stuff. At one point, Marjorie tells Merry she's just faking all her symptoms to make the TV show more interesting and to make Mom and Dad some money, but the best is yet to come.
As time progresses, Marjorie does more and more "demonic" things, such as talking with an entirely different inflection, contorting herself, the whole nine. Dad thinks it's time to get a priest involved an possibly have his daughter exorcised of the demons. Of course, this is perfect for the TV show. Viewers are flocking. The prep up to the exorcism is sort of drawn out, and I was like... come on, just get to it already! But, that's how us writers keep you on the hook, right? When we get down to the night of the exorcism, Marjorie gets tied down to the bed like most exorcism candidates do, don't want them hurting themselves or someone else, right? She then says she's not on board with the whole exorcism thing anymore, but the priests and dad are like... too late now! As it progresses, of course Marjorie breaks free of her restraints, stabs the priest, sending her little sister flocking from the bedroom in hysterics. There's a truly haunting scene where Marjorie is depicted as hovering over the second story banister watching her sister. In all actuality, she took a flying leap and ended up breaking her foot when all was said and done. Good job, dumb ass!
Flash forward to a few weeks after the botched exorcism. Marjorie pulls Merry aside and tells her that she thinks Dad is really the possessed one. She found all sorts of weird shit in the basement including an alter with some oddly telling "white stuff" sitting in the middle of it. She pocketed a small amount of it to prove it to Merry and told her she discovered it was arsenic. Daddy was planning on poisoning the family, she read about that kind of shit on the inter-webs. Marjorie says, "let's put a little in tonight's spaghetti dinner, just to teach Mom and Dad a lesson. Just enough to knock them out and bring them to their senses." Of course, she convinces Merry to dump it in the spaghetti pot while Marjorie is off distracting Mom. Of course, the kids plan on not having any sauce on their spaghetti because "their stomachs are sour." Come dinner time, Mom and Dad slurp up the spaghetti like any other day, and Marjorie lays the sauce thick on her own plate and starts gobbling it up. Naturally, Mom, Dad, and Marjorie drop dead leaving poor little Merry wondering if her family is just sleeping. It takes a few days of her hanging out with her dead family before the cops show up.
The novelist is floored by all this information as told by the grown-up Merry and is hoping for a best-seller with this newly released information. We're left with a pretty shocking final moment with the Barrett family that's actually pretty horrific. So yeah, maybe your parents are crazy, maybe your kids are crazy, who knows? Makes you want to sleep with one eye open and cook your own meals though, doesn't it?
While this was a fiction novel, it read like a non-fiction novel, which I really liked about it. It made me think The Amityville Horror which is quite honestly, the scariest book I've ever read. Of course, with my over-active imagination, I let my mind wander while I was reading the book and scared the hell out of myself while sitting in my bed with all the lights off. So, all in all, this book made its point, it got my imagination working and scared the piss out of myself. Good job, Paul Tremblay!
