BOOK REVIEW | COME CLOSER | SARAH GRAN

BOOK REVIEW | COME CLOSER | SARAH GRAN

ABOUT THE BOOK

A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda - a successful architect in a happy marriage - finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.

 The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane?

REVIEW                                                                                                                     

Sarah Gran’s 2003 novella tells the story of Amanda and how she becomes possessed by a malevolent spirit.

The story starts with small minor things, for instance, whilst working on a project at work, she is shouted into the office of her boss who asks her the reason why she has submitted something that is derogatory to him.

At first, things have a plausibility to them. She becomes increasingly irritable with her husband. She picks up the habit of smoking again despite having been stopped for some time. However, things start to soon spiral out of her control and she becomes more reckless as time moves on.

Lauded by many as intensely creepy and horrific, with Kirkus reviewing it at the time as ‘wonderfully eerie’. However, a lot of readers will find this to not hit its mark. Primarily due to its almost clinical narrative.

The story is told from Amanda’s point of view but it is written in such a way as that it feels dispassionate and remote, which leaves the book to have a distinct clinical detachment from the story and instead of character growth or a growing sense of unease, the book feels like a series of descriptive events making it feel disjointed rather than a natural progression.

There is a distinct lack of emotion throughout the story. This impacts significantly on the book and as events unfold, the feeling of horror, instead of building, ultimately dissipates with an anti-climactic and predictable ending.

Similar to the story, the characters are written in a kind of hands off manner, which didn’t make me find any connection with the characters. Due to the shortness of the book, there is very little room for background, which leads to them feeling like they are a cardboard cut out for the events that transpire rather than being active participants in the story.

If you like possession horror, this is regarded as a prime example of the genre. However for me , it went wildly from its target and ultimately missed its mark.