Emberton

This dark potpourri of weird ingredients makes Emberton an impossible book to classify. It is perhaps first and foremost a tale of gothic horror, with a contemporary digression into the field of medical terror. But it is also a slacker-style workplace satire, a crazy allegory, and a comic fantasy with a sub-plot involving a demure lexicographical romance.

Emberton takes numerous risks, most of which pay off. It pokes fun both at creative and corporate types. Whether a writer should write for an audience or for his/herself is an old saw, but this book knows with certainty who its readers are. It offers an interesting mix of flavours: a salting of Spike Jones and Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich); elements of meta-horror such as show more House of Leaves; and shades of Roman Polanski and Ira Levin both together (Rosemary’s Baby) and alone (Polanski’s The Ninth Gate, Levin’s Stepford Wives). show less