Susan Fletcher (2) (1979–)

A house is meant to be a place of safety and intimacy. The haunted house is a powerful symbol of horror precisely because it shows us a haven of domesticity upturned by an intruder, and a supernatural one at that. It is hardly surprising that from being just one of many Gothic tropes, the haunted house eventually became the basis of a rich supernatural sub-genre.

House of Glass is a historical novel within this tradition. It is set just before the outbreak of the First World War and features a sprawling mansion – Shadowbrook – marked by dark, old rumours about its previous owners, the evil and hated Pettigrew family. The last Pettigrew to inhabit Shadowbrook was the sensual, decadent and possibly mad Veronique - her ghost still walks its corridors and the pages of this book. So far, so familiar. Indeed, this novel shares many elements with other books within the (sub-)genre. It has been compared to Du Maurier’s Rebecca but I would say that its mixture of Gothic thrills, historical novel and social commentary is closer in spirit to Sarah Water’s The Little Stranger. What makes House of Glass particularly original is its protagonist and narrator, Clara Waterfield. Conceived out of wedlock in India, and born in England where her mother Charlotte is dispatched to avoid a scandal, Clara suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta or “brittle bones disease”, a condition which causes fractures at the least pressure or impact. As a result, Clara lives a secluded London childhood, fiercely protected by her parents. The premature death of her mother thrusts Clara into adulthood. Notwithstanding her syndrome, her walking cane and ungainly gait, Clara ventures out into the world. The gardens at Kew become her refuge and she finds herself turning into an amateur botanist – “amateur” in the best sense of the word, that of a lover of knowledge. This earns her the respect, friendship and support of Forbes, the foreman of the glasshouses. It also leads to an unexpected invitation. One day, Clara is summoned to Gloucestershire by the new owner of Shadowbrook, to oversee the installation of exotic plants from Kew in a new greenhouse in the mansion’s gardens. It is here that the ghost story proper begins. For Clara finds herself surrounded by mystery and secrets, by things that go bump in the night and malevolent attacks by an unseen visitor. The housekeeper and maids cower in fear of the ghost of Veronique Pettigrew, a woman seemingly so evil that a mere mention of her name is enough to unleash poltergeist activity. Clara is sceptical but her rationalist approach is put under severe test. That summer will mark her coming to age, as she questions long-held certainties and beliefs.

At one level, House of Glass is enjoyable as a good old piece of storytelling. But there is so much more to it. What struck me at first is the blend of realism and the supernatural. Shadowbrook and its gardens are inspired by the real-life Hidcote Manor Gardens (a National Trust property in Gloucestershire) and they are lovingly and minutely described. At the same time, Fletcher uses small details (closed, dust-filled rooms; peeling paint; a blood-stained billiard table) to evoke an atmosphere of fear and dread. The scene has already been set for the nocturnal visitations which considerably ratchet up the tension.

The novel also manages to take an established form and inject it with a strong dose of feminism. Clara’s condition becomes a symbol of female rebellion and resistance, her physical imperfections as transgressive as her assertiveness and inquisitiveness. There is a parallel between the “cripple” Clara and the uniquely beautiful Veronique, both of them strong women trying to hold their own in a patriarchal society. Clara ruefully notes that despite the fact that the male Pettigrews were violent and criminal, it was Veronique and her ‘sex orgies’ which gripped the attention of the sleepy village where she lived and which marked her forever as an epitome of immorality. This leads to another theme which is central to the novel, namely that of truth and falsehood, and how accounts can be manipulated to propagate the worldview favoured by their narrator.

My only reservation when reading the novel was that there are a number of narrative gear-changes late in the book. Engrossing as it is, the plot moves forward at a leisurely pace until about three-quarters in, when a raft of unexpected revelations propel the tale forward and lead us closer to the “sensation novel”. In the final chapters then, there is yet another shift, as the work ends with a meditation on war. The more I think about it, however, the more I tend to feel that my initial doubts were unfounded – the different facets of House of Glass ultimately add up to a convincing whole, held together by Fletcher’s lyrical and elegiac writing style. For this is also a story about the passing of an era, and what are ghosts if not remnants, in one way or another, of a half-remembered past?


A longer version of this review, featuring a selection of music to accompany the novel, can be found at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2018/11/ghosts-of-evils-past-susan-fletchers....… (more)