Those Across the River Review

Fleeing the North in disgrace, WWI veteran and failed academic Frank Nichols and his soon-to-be wife Eudora, arrive in a tiny Georgian hamlet where Frank has just inherited the home of his recently deceased aunt.  Under the strict injunction to sell the house and absolutely not to move to Whitbrow (the aforementioned tiny hamlet), Frank does exactly the opposite.  But haunted by the specter of war, and the stigma of both cuckoldry and adultery, Frank takes this opportunity to be heaven-sent.  It doesn't hurt that just across the river is the ancient Savoyard plantation, where his great-grandfather was known to have treated his slaves so inhumanely, that they eventually rose up and slaughtered him.  Hoping to segue family tragedy into a book which might serve as passport back to his academic career, Frank is lured across the river and confronted by memories that simply refuse to die.

This very basic summary hardly does the book justice.  First of all, this is a supernatural horror story, and is currently up for nomination to win the World Fantasy Award.  Second, it deals with subject matter far more literary than this genre is used to.  The mental wounds that Frank suffered in the trenches of WWI still torment him; moreover, from the outset we're informed that while he's a nice guy, he's not above sleeping with another man's wife.  From this fragmented moral landscape, we're also offered a piquant reminder of the suffering and inhumanity of slavery.

This book is remarkably smart, not only in its subject matter, but also in the way that it deals with the persons of Frank and Eudora Nichols (as they eventually do marry).  Told in the first person, however, it necessarily focuses on his triumphs, defeats, fears and the quotidian tragedies that comprise human existence.  It doesn't surprise me at all that this book has been picked up to be made into a movie, directed by Tod "Kip" Williams, who directed Paranormal Activity 2.  Commentators have noted that Christopher Beuhlman writes like a combination of Flannery O'Connor and Stephen King, which is not an inapt comparison.

The singular flaw in the novel, however, comes late in the second act, and continues throughout the third act.  Once the mystery is revealed, and mortal lives are placed in danger, Beuhlman fails to utilize the wealth of characterization he has developed in the previous act.  Indeed, the first act reads so well because of the deeply characterized human beings who inhabit the fictional world of Whitbrow.  Their deaths, when they come are tragic, but we never have a sense of who they are under pressure; indeed, by the start of the third act they have simply disappeared and two new characters are introduced to help our protagonist win the day.

But this shortcoming is minor, and really only occurred to me after the fact.  It hardly detracts from the overall story.  It kept me up well past my bedtime and I can't say that I minded.  In fact, this might be my favorite book of the year and I heartily recommend it.