This is ostensibly a novel about place, specifically French Lick, Indiana. This makes it so frustrating that it failed to fully bring the valley to life. There is a good novel in here, perhaps even more than one but too many ideas are introduced without ever delivering fully on its premise.
Plot in a Nutshell
Eric Shaw, a disgraced and failed cinematographer is reduced to making in memorial videos when he is approached by Alyssia Bradford who asks him to make a documentary about her father-in- law.
Intrigued and needing the money Eric follows the threads Alyssia feeds him to the man’s home town in French Lick and West Baden. There he encounters the sad history of the town and it’s once fantastic spa resorts. As he digs deeper he is pulled into the dark past whilst falling foul of the evil that still exists deep in the valley.
Thoughts
Koryta seems unsure what he wants this novel to become. He introduces a range of interesting ideas, but never develops them far enough to make them feel fully cohesive.
Eric as a protaganist is the first problem. For much of the novel we know he is recently separated and has had to return to Chicago after a thwarted career in LA. There are strong hints that he drinks too much and that he has some level of psychic ability. All of this shows great promise. Eric should be a really interesting character. He has self-loathing and a self-destructive tendency that should have been compelling and pointed at a more complicated interesting arc. Instead, I found that I really struggled to care for him. He was flat, despite the hints of intrigue. When explanations came they were disappointingly prosaic and some things were left unexplained or followed through.
Then there is the paranormal component, Eric makes the questionable decision to drink an abnormally cold bottle of eighty-year-old water. In so doing he opens himself up to terrible visions and horrific, unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. On the way there is a ghost train, a malevolent spirit who appears to be getting stronger and a deep mystery to be solved. Through his camera Eric sees someone catatonic speak, and a ghostly violinist playing a mournful elegy.
This could have been terrifying. It should have been terrifying.
But it never comes close. I wanted this to be the kind of novel that builds and keeps you up reading all night because closing your eyes feels too scary. But it just was not.
The mystery surrounding Alyssa’s father-in-law has a similar problem. His identity and connection to the town are treated as a major source of suspense, but the eventual answer is relatively straightforward.
There is also a meteorological thread that felt decidedly heavy handed. Anne is a well-drawn character, old, fascinated by the weather and a crucial repository of some of the towns history, including much needed water samples. That she is an amateur meteorologist is fine, but her constant checking of the weather and the introduction of a big storm which acts as a the finale of the novel felt highly unsubtle.
The historical thread is probably one of the better elements of the novel. I enjoyed Kellen the PHD student who helpfully appears and drops into being Eric’s sidekick. A role he takes with an ease you might not expect from someone who sees Eric’s odd behaviour first hand. The story that he is working on of the black history of the town was a good one. Through a combination of the visions and Kellen’s story we see some of the historic context which gave a richness and depth that was missing elsewhere.
This does matter and probably is the reason I kept reading. The past drives the story. Old man Bradford is tethered by it and the supernatural component requires the reader to believe the past remains oddly present in the valley.
The handling of place was my biggest disappointment. Throughout we’re told that there is something unusual about this valley. It has a peculiar atmosphere and character of its own. Yet I rarely felt it. The West Baden Springs Hotel in particular should inspire awe. Its enormous domed atrium is extraordinary in the pictures I looked up, but the novel never quite communicated the sense of scale or wonder I expected. The history of the place is essential to the plot, but the place itself never becomes as vivid a presence as it ought to be.
For all those frustrations I did keep going and found that the writing and historical components were enjoyable. It’s a big book at over 500 pages but the pacing kept it moving. It’s not the horror the blurb promised, and there are too many threads for it to be a well-structured psychological mystery.
A Final Note
For a more successful combination of place and mystery try God of the Woods by Liz Moore. One that also did not quite work for me but also plays with the idea of fear and history of a place shaping the present is The Essex Serpent by Sara Parry