Will Maclean's Solace House is a heady brew of gothic horror and psychedelic weirdness, set in the summer of 1993. The novel follows Alex Lane, a broke and lonely university student who stays behind after term ends. He is haunted by a sinister pale boy named Adam and a family trauma he calls 'The Last Day' and 'The Annihilator.' Just as he faces eviction, he gets a lifeline: a job clearing out an old asylum called Marshlands, adjacent to a decrepit gothic mansion named Solace House.
A Cast of 90s Archetypes
The cleanup crew includes a cast of early 90s student archetypes: Helen the Christian, obnoxious stoner Clive, goth Ruth, new-agey Leo, beautiful gay Malcolm, and red-haired Ella, with whom Alex falls into bed, enraging Adam. They smoke joints, drink cheap red wine, and exchange pretentious banter while cleaning the asylum. But the real fun begins when they reach Solace House, the former home of Edwin Flayne, a 102-year-old recluse and poet who hoarded newspapers and junk.
Mysteries and Mayhem
Solace House is stacked floor to ceiling with detritus, with narrow tunnels winding through the mess. A mysterious telephone rings unanswered. Flayne's terrible poetry, full of archaisms and portentous nouns, appears as chapter epigraphs. The house stands at a 'thin place' where otherworldly emanations seep through. Flayne pursued dark magic and demented maths, and his mother was a redhead named Ella. Both Alex and Adam's names, as acrostics, spell out Abel, Flayne's father's name. There is a hedge maze, an ancient cavern, and reality becomes increasingly hinky. Naturally, everyone ends up taking a massive dose of magic mushrooms.
Comparisons and Influences
The novel draws comparisons to True Detective, Arthur Machen, Charles Williams, and HP Lovecraft, with flavors of The Secret History and House of Leaves. It also shares occult territory with Francis Spufford's Nonesuch. The 500-plus pages whip by, packed with entertainment and scares. If there's a flaw, it's that the novel is a bit overstuffed, like the house itself, and Maclean struggles to articulate the ineffable mind-mangling realms beyond comprehension. But that's the nature of such realms. Gothic fiction tries too hard, and it must. For fans of the genre, this is a joy. A clever and satisfying twist near the end even makes sense of the terrible poetry.
Solace House by Will Maclean is published by Atlantic (£20).
