A Guest in the House - Book Review

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Carroll, E. A Guest in the House. Faber. (2023). Image Link.

A Guest in the House is a contemporary gothic horror novel from Eisner-award winning author Emily Carroll. It is 256-pages long and was published by First Second Books on 15 August 2023. Emily Carroll is a comic book writer and artist from Ontario, Canada. She has won multiple awards for her work in comics, most notably being two Eisners, an Ignatz, and a British Fantasy Award. In a Guest in the House , Carroll has created a modern horror classic, that tells a story about motherhood, murder, grief, violence, and female rage. The New York Times included A Guest in the House in their 100 Notable Books of 2023 list.

The book opens with Abby trying her best to convince herself that she likes about married life. She tells herself that she will learn to love her step-daughter Crystal and that there are plenty of things that she loves about her husband David. Abby is desperate to be the best wife and step-mother she can be but struggles with negative thoughts. She thinks that she is nothing special and feels like she is living in the shadow of her husband's first wife, Sheila, who died under mysterious circumstances. Did she really die from natural causes or did something more sinister happen? When Abby starts asking questions about Sheila, she begins to suspect that her husband might be lying, and that there might be a guest lurking somewhere in the house.

I thought that A Guest in the House was a masterpiece. I really loved how Carroll used colour in this book to give the reader a glimpse into the emotional state of the characters. The only portions of the book that are in colour is when Abby feels a lot of emotion or daydreams. The book opens up with a colourful depiction of Abby imagining herself as a knight slaying a dragon and being bathed in hot viscera. The scene then cuts to the real Abby and we see that her world is grey and colourless. We only see splashes of colour when Abby has negative thoughts like when she imagines ripping open her throat over a bathroom sink. When Abby starts seeing the ghost of Sheila around the house, she is just a red flicker at first, and then appears as a ghostly spectre of a woman wearing a crown and a long blue gown.

In an interview with Elise Dumpleton with Nerd Daily , Carroll spoke about her influences for the book, the major ones being "A Jest of God" by Margaret Laurence and "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier. Carroll is such an excellent storyteller. The mystery of what happened to Sheila was very compelling and I was instantly hooked by the relationship between Abby and Sheila and the growing sexual innuendo between the two of them. In one dream, Abby pictures herself as the knight again. She finds Sheila in the water and the two of them embrace. Abby falls to her knees in front of her and Sheila slashes a red line across her breasts. As blood pours from her wound onto Abby's face, Sheila reaches under her dress, where green vines are unfurling and plucks a single red rose.

The horror scenes in this book were so well done and reminded me a lot of Mike Flanagan's horror masterpiece The Haunting of Hill House (2018). There were several moments in the book that I found to be genuinely disturbing. I just loved it. If you love horror graphic novels with a lesbian subtext I definitely recommend A Guest in the House.

Summary: Emily Carroll weaves a story of gothic horror in A Guest in the House
Websites:
A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll – Faber
Emily Carroll - Official Website
Cost $39.99
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