Christopher Ransom

I read a few good reviews of The Birthing House, by Christopher Ransom, so when it showed up in one of my mail-order book clubs, I ordered it. A mistake, as it turns out; what was described in the reviews as a new original voice in dark fiction/horror that takes the idea of a haunted house to new and unexpected places struck me as the somewhat pornographic, always self-pitying story of a 30-year-old man who has never grown up. Conrad, a failed screenwriter living more or less as a "house show more husband" with his ambitious saleswoman wife Joanna, stops in a small town in Wisconsin while driving home from burying his father and on a whim buys a house that's for sale there. He thinks it will bring a fresh start to his drooping marriage and maybe make his wife happy too (though he can't be bothered to actually discuss this purchase and move with her before forcing her into it). Instead, the house, a former "birthing house" for unmarried pregnant women in the early 1900s, has a mind of its own when it comes to matters of life and death....I really disliked the lead character, Conrad (who calls himself, to himself, "Rad" - just to show how stunningly juvenile he is), a 30-year-old man who apparently believes that marriage is always and only about sex; and I thought the author, while coming up with a few interesting images, mostly just threw in whatever he thought might stick (this is a debut novel, we're told). For example, at one point he makes a big deal about these exotic snakes that "Rad" is raising in the garage, but then they're pretty much forgotten for the rest of the book, except for a single scene in which their fate is revealed as a sort of side note to the main horror of the scene. Sloppy, in a word. And not different enough from other haunted house stories - except in the constant, explicit descriptions of sex - to be an "exciting new voice" in horror as touted by blurbs on the back cover. Don't bother with this one. show less

I like a good scary story. Notice my use of the word good.
This one really looked promising for a while. It made it past the
fifty page Pearl Rule, as far as I am concerned, but barely.

Even though it was somewhat formulaic in an evil house / good people kind of way in the beginning, I though it was gearing up to be a good read. I have been wrong before. I was wrong about that.

Conrad might have been a person that you felt some sympathy for, until you get to know him. As the story develops show more he lets everyone down, including his two dogs. The more I learned about him the more I was rooting for the evil spirits. There was evil in the house. It was a deranged little dwelling. The spirits there were sad, sick and deranged as well. They were also a bit timid, in my opinion. They really didn't show up very often.

The Laski family were the previous owners. They were portrayed as rather stupid. Mr Laski gave Conrad a book that was a sort of baby book for the house. It showed its beginnings and its development. Conrad found something in the book that alarmed him and instead of researching it,
had a silly meltdown. I found that more than annoying.

What you see here is mostly Conrad losing any good within him and giving in to the dark side of himself. That was the end of sympathy for him. That and the gratuitous sex scenes.

The last half or more of the book sort of fell apart for me . Threads were left hanging. I would not recommend this book. show less

Conrad Harrison finds himself in Black Earth, Wisconsin, after having taken a wrong turn out of Chicago. He then sees an old house and buys it on impulse, without even stopping to ask his wife Jo – who is back at their home in Los Angeles – whether she likes it.

They move into the house, but Jo almost immediately has to go away for eight weeks to do with work. While she is away, Conrad is given an old photo album with pictures from when the house was originally built in the 1800s. When he show more is looking through it, he sees a group of women standing outside the house – and has the shock of his life when he recognises his own wife as one of those women…From then on, things in the house take a frightening turn and it soon becomes clear that there are dark forces at work within his new home. But who are they – and what do they want?

I’ve read a lot of reviews of this book, and it certainly seems to have polarised opinion with people thinking it’s either wonderful or terrible. I definitely fall into the latter category. Unfortunately, I think this is probably one of the worst books I’ve ever read, and the only reason I finished it is because I hate to give up on a book no matter how dire it is.

There is an interesting idea here, with the potential for a great story, but unfortunately the execution was awful. Conrad is one of the most unlikeable characters I can remember reading about in a long time. I don’t necessarily think it’s important to have a ‘nice’ main character, but Conrad was too detestable with no redeeming features whatsoever. It become clear early on in the book that his marriage is in trouble, but after his wife (also a deeply unsympathetic character) goes away, he then develops an unhealthy infatuation with the young and very pregnant neighbour Nadia. His thoughts seem to revolve entirely around sex and his recent lack of it, so that he comes across like a petulant teenager.

There are also chapters throughout the book dedicated to his first and great love Holly. While I was expecting some great revelation to come out with regard to her, there was a distinct anti climax when their secret was revealed, and it served no purpose in the main story at all, other than to set the scene for a very long and over descriptive account of how they spent the night together (with every bump and grind accounted for).

Once the story got underway, it seemed to go round and round in circles for ages, and then the ending of the story – when it eventually came – just seemed to go on and on and…..(it certainly got me turning the pages quickly, but only because I couldn’t wait to finish it).

To sum up – and I’m rarely this scathing about any book – this was hokey, boring, with far too many unnecessary references to explicit sex, and not in the slightest bit scary. Definitely one to avoid. show less

Hoping to repair his damaged marriage, Conrad Harrison explores homes as far away from Los Angeles as he dares to go, winding up at a little town called Black Earth. Following the directions from a few of the locals, he makes his way to a large Victorian mansion that once served as a birthing house, a home for unwed mothers to have their children. Something about the house seems to click with him, and he decides then and there to make an offer, and within a few weeks, Conrad, his wife Joanna show more and their two dogs, Alice and Luther, find themselves moving into their new home.

While his wife is away at an eight-week job training in Detroit, the house's former owner, Leon Laski, drops by to give Conrad a crate of items that belong with the house, including an old photo album. Leafing through its pages, Conrad discovers with horror the face of his wife staring at him from one of the older pictures, a stare filled with hatred and malice. That's the night it starts: glimpses of the woman from the photo disappearing throughout the house, the sound of a mysterious baby crying, a small faceless doll attacking him in the middle of the night.

Something in the house has plans for Conrad, and in a series of terrifying events, he's about to discover the secrets buried inside "The Birthing House".

Christopher Ransom has crafted an intriguing ghost story filled with both ghostly terror and psychological trickery, and set in a place I'd never even heard of before the book: a birthing house. (With all the life and death that must have gone on in such a place, no wonder he decided to use it.) The manifestations of the ghost from the small, faceless doll clicking across the bedroom floor to the dogs agitated and angry as they scratch and dig at a wall in the basement sent goosebumps coursing across my skin with each page. Throughout the novel, Conrad never seems to quite understand what's happening -- did a woman resembling his wife just disappear into the shed or was it his wife, who should be in Detroit? What happened to Laski's wife and all their children that made him eager to sell? Did the ghost leave a knife at the foot of his bed with a note attached reading "other mother must go", or did he set the knife there himself? Conrad's confusion is very apparent but, at times, works like a double-edged sword.

While the confusion added to my empathizing with him, I also felt confused at some of the events. Through much of the book, Conrad discovers a strange attraction to his neighbor's pregnant daughter, Nadia, which appears to be mutual until they rush to her boyfriend's home. She says a few things that made me scratch my head as to her character's true intentions because they didn't mesh with previous fifty or so pages, but then it's glossed over as if it never happened. I re-read the scene a few times just to make sure I hadn't read it incorrectly.

Despite this, I enjoyed Ransom's story, wanting to see how Conrad's relationships with his wife Joanna, his neighbor Nadia, and the spirit of the house would play out. Anyone who enjoys a ghost story with filled with unexpected twists and turns will definitely find this a worthwhile read.

And I wouldn't want to find myself anywhere near that house! show less