Epeolatry Book Review: Somewhere Quiet, Full of Light by Henry Corrigan

Eric, Michael, and their two young daughters flee the confined space of their New York City apartment for a sprawling Victorian in upstate New York that’s been abandoned for years. Michael, whose livelihood and skills are focused on home restoration, snatches up the bargain house with dreams of bringing it back to its past splendor. Eric, a visual artist, is less convinced. 

Eric and Michael have struggled financially their entire lives; that shared want and desperation helped cement their relationship. But now, to Eric, the huge, decrepit house looks like a money pit: “Weeds crowded the base of the house like the hem of a ruffled skirt and what looked like a whole generation of spiders had built their nests in the eaves.” All he can think of is how much the place will cost them. But Michael sees something special in the house—and it even has an extra room for Eric’s own studio space, “somewhere quiet and full of light.”

This well-crafted novella alternates between two narrators: Eric Tillman and the house itself, referred to simply as “Me.” As we learn more about the house and its bloody history, the more we root for Eric and the kids to leave … before it’s too late. The house, you see, has specific ideas about how Michael’s restoration will be done.

Author Corrigan does an excellent job of creating a dichotomy of emotion: the loving LGBTQ family pitted against the bitter, angry house. Eric and Michael care deeply about their daughters—teenage Emily about to start high school, and 8-year-old Iris who sets about conquering her world armed with a plastic sword. The couple refer affectionately to each other by their pet names: Bear for Michael and Scribble for Eric. We see the family laughing comfortably together as they eat breakfast pancakes and eggs in the rehabbed kitchen. 

And then things start to happen.

Eric’s reluctance about buying the house deepens into unease as he notices more and more oddities. Michael begins to change in a way that may mean the end of their marriage. The doors to their daughters’ bedrooms lock from the outside, an indication that the previous occupants may not have been free to come and go. Even Eric’s paintings are affected. He begins to choose dark, foreboding colors instead of his usual bright palette. The house, he realizes, is telling them they don’t belong there.

The house in turn reveals its secrets gradually and selectively. Iris disappears—or does she? The ornate and out-of-date furniture stored in the basement makes its way upstairs with the help of Michael, to Eric’s displeasure. Even the grounds around the house are absent of life (no birds chirping, no squirrels running). According to the house, this is a way “to show them the means of proper living.” The best lessons, the house says, “are always painful.”

Corrigan has a painter’s eye for detail. One of my favorite lines in the book is about the choking humidity of a Northeast summer: “The kind of day when every minute spent outside was like being wrapped up in wet laundry that also happened to be on fire.”

In a recent HWA interview, Corrigan says, “In my latest novella, for as much as it is a haunted house story, it’s more about growing up without a lot of money, and the dangers of aspiration.”

The Tillman family, according to the house, “should have known better.” 

/5

Available from Amazon and Bookshop.