I Remember You

The subtitle of this novel is “a ghost story,” and so it is. I can’t remember when I last read a novel that was so whole-heartedly about ghosts. Some books have a touch here and there of the supernatural – but this is flat-out a suspenseful horror tale with a touch of mystery. And it’s quite a lot of fun.

There are two major threads to the novel. In one, a group of ill-prepared citified Icelanders have decided to renovate an abandoned house in Hesteyri, a remote fishing village in the northwestern fjords of Iceland that is no longer inhabited except for occasional summer vacationers. They hope to make a go of it, hosting paying summer guests, but the three friends, a married couple and an urbane woman friend, have few skills show more and little money. After a boat captain leaves them there with supplies, promising to return in a week, they begin to realize how unprepared they are. The house is I Remember Youin much worse repair than they thought, the cold and the winter darkness is oppressive, and soon they realize they aren’t alone on the island. A strange, ragged child seems bent on destroying their dreams of turning the vacant house into a liveable holiday home.

Meanwhile, in the remote port of Ísaforþur, the closest town, a psychiatrist is treating a troubled old woman in a nursing home while trying to forget the fact that he lost his young son, something that drove a wedge between him and his wife (who can’t put it behind her). “Lost” isn’t a euphamism. The child disappeared without a trace, and the police can only surmise that he somehow wandered down to the sea and was drowned, his body never recovered. There is also the strange case of vandalism in a school which seems strangely like an incident decades ago.

These things, of course, are hardly random. The malevolent spirit haunting the abandoned fishing village must surely have some connection to the doctor’s missing boy, and photos defaced at the school seem strangely connected to a string of deaths . . .

A great pleasure of this story is the drawing together of these threads as the author gives us a glimpse here, a hint there of how pieces of the story connect – all with a background of impending dread. Things at the remote abandoned village go from very bad to even worse, and the pyschiatrist begins to wonder if he’s losing his mind.

I have never been a fan of ghost stories and am postiively allergic to horror as a genre, but I was surprised at how thoroughly I enjoyed reading this book, though it wasn’t always the right material to read in bed before drifting off to sleep. There are touches of humor here and there, well-drawn and sympathetic characters as well as some who are not, and a plot that keeps winding tighter and tighter. While these kinds of books are often thinly-disguised as morality tales – someone who has chosen to be evil or made a bad choice gets his or her comeuppance – the story behind the haunting places responsibility, as so often happens in Scandinavian crime fiction, on people who fail to care for the vulnerable and on indifferent social instutions that don’t live up to their responsibilities. As well as the actions of a certifiable pyschopath or two. show less

Good ghost stories are hard to find so I am very happy to be able to recommend I Remember You by Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir. Building on separate stories that involve missing children, she develops her story slowly and keeps the chills coming.

The book consists of two separate plot lines which are presented in alternate chapters. In the first one, three friends take themselves off to a remote, isolated and abandoned fishing village in order to renovate a house that they wish to turn into a guest house for hikers coming into the area. They are thwarted at every turn by ever threatening appearances of a ghostly boy. All too soon it becomes apparent that this boy means them harm. Meanwhile a young doctor is grieving the show more mysterious disappearance of his own son while at the same time learning of another young boy who disappeared over forty years ago. These are both intense and frightening story lines that the author brings together into one cohesive finish.

I Remember You is a dark story of children disappearing, of bullying, simmering malice and revenge. It’s been awhile since a ghost story has actually managed to frighten me but this multilayered tale certainly managed that and was delightfully creepy and atmospheric as well. show less

Part mystery, part ghost story, this is a creepy little novel about wrongdoing, revenge, and rage that transcends time. It's interesting how in this novel rage is presented as a kind of infectious agent, something you can fight but never really snuff out. In tone, it reminds me a little of Michelle Paver's Dark Matter and caused the hairs on my head to stand up as I walked to bed in the dark after finishing a chapter.

If you are looking for a legitimately scary ghost story, here you go. I loved this creepy tale of a a group of friends that go to an island in winter to begin renovations on a house they've recently purchased. Their story alternates chapters with one of a doctor whose son went missing three years previously while he was playing a game of hide and seek.

I won't give away any plot and, honestly, if you summarize it sounds kind of silly anyway, but this really worked for me. Probably scary books aren't universally scary - I think a lot depends on your mood at the time - but I loved this.

A good ghost story is hard to find.

What qualifies as great in this genre? I find it’s easier to say what stories haven’t reached the level of good, much less great horror of the ghostly kind. Some simply aren’t frightening, such as the unaccountably lauded The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill (2001), and everything written, thus far, by Sarah Rayne. Others substitute psychological ghosts for the genuinely supernatural, such as the recent The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, by Valerie Martin (2014), and while I accept our memories are peopled with the phantoms of incidents and relationships in our past that certainly haunt us, a novel focused solely on regrets and sins, rather than an actual revenant—a spook—don’t qualify as ghost show more stories. Too many contemporary ghost story writers don’t even bother to attempt the challenge of building the slow, subtle escalation of fear found in a half-heard whisper, a quickly glimpsed figure, an unaccountable chill; instead, they fall back on the easily gruesome, replete with chainsaws, nail guns, fangs, and claws.

A few of the better ghost stories include The Uninvited, by Dorothy Macardle (1942); Ammie, Come Home, by Barbara Michaels (1968); The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson (1959); The Shining, by Stephen King (1977). Each creates a creepy atmosphere, attributable primarily—if not solely—by the supernatural, atmospheres so suffused with tension the reader doesn’t dare stop reading, not matter how late the hour, lest she be forced to turn out the lights without having the mysterious explained, if not resolved.

Happily, the Icelandic author, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, decided to take on the genre, and while her attempt isn’t entirely successful, I Remember You rises well above the current competition to deliver genuinely chilling ghostly goings-on.

The first ninety pages unfold slowly, introducing an ever-growing, disparate cast of primary and secondary characters, and a large part of the fun of I Remember You is realizing how deftly Sigurdardottir deftly controls how and when we learn what each has to contribute to the two separate vandalism cases and the two separate disappearances. So adept is the author I had to read the book a second time, dissecting how the author constructed such an enjoyable puzzle.

In the far northwest of Iceland, in the town of Ísafjörður, a criminal psychologist named Freydr attempts to dissect an incident of destructive vandalism that has occurred at a local elementary school. Being around the children who attend this school revive Freydr’s emotional struggle to cope with the disappearance, three years earlier, of his young son, Beni, a struggle that escalates when Freydr discovers, almost by accident, that a similar incident occurred in the same school sixty years earlier . . . and that this presaged the disappearance of another young boy.

At the same time, three friends—Katrin and Gardar, who are married, and Lif, their recently widowed friend—leave Ísafjörður by boat and deliberately maroon themselves for a week in a remote, seasonal village, determined to renovate an old, abandoned house. They suffer the lack of electricity, cell coverage, heat, running water, and—beginning on the first night—a host of strange noises within their house. Floorboards squeak; mysterious, wet footsteps are found in the house despite locked doors and windows; shells arranged on the floor spell out an ominous word. Soon their days are equally haunted, when a haggard-looking boy appears and follows them, eluding all attempts to communicate.

Freydr counsels the bewildered widower of an elderly woman who has killed herself in a church and is astonished, then increasingly unsettled, to learn the woman was fixated on the disappearance of his son. Another elderly woman, confined to an assisted living facility, claims a boy is on the grounds of the facility, a boy she clearly fears, a boy she went to school with sixty years earlier and who, like Freydr’s son, disappeared without a trace. Freydr ponders all this in his office late one evening, and here Sigurdardottir introduces one of the oldest ghost chestnuts around . . . and makes it work.

A few reveals fall flat, but for the most part each scene contains a delicious surprise. Freydr remains interesting throughout, in part because, even as we learn more of his failings and frailties, he remains sympathetically complex and believable in his responses to the mysteries that surround him. The three hapless would-be renovators? They whine and snipe, moan and groan, shudder and shriek as they deliberately put themselves in increasing danger; in short, they’re unsympathetic. The revelation of a not-entirely-unexpected subplot amongst them did nothing to change my opinion, and while I enjoyed some of the early ghostly doings in the abandoned village, toward the end even this pleasure was diluted by these Protagonists Clearly Too Dumb To Live.

What did I love?

The complex relationships within the story and how the author ensures each character contributes to the unraveling of the mysteries. The point of view in each chapter alternates the main characters whose lives ultimately connect in ways that prove highly enjoyable, if not entirely credible.

Sigardurdottir’s skill at weaving a tale of human failings together with the strange vagaries of fate and the supernatural.
The long, slow fuse, which means one can savor its characters over several days . . . or, better, several nights as disparate details shaped a satisfyingly creep story.

What disappointed?

Sigurdardottir’s disposal of the last two foolish renovators (the fate of the first is nicely done). She seems suddenly to feel compelled to cheapen the ghostly with zombie-ish schtick. Not only did this strike me as needless, given the atmosphere and setting she had carefully constructed, but this choice pushed the story—temporarily—into the amateurish for a few critical pages.

I recommend reading I Remember You late at night. More than once, when I switched off the lights after reading several chapters, I lay awake, alert and nervous, listening anew to noises within my house. Creaks and moans conjuring shuddering possibilities, even though I knew one was an wood chest that, after thirty years, is still adjusting to the transition from tree to furniture, and that the other was my even older refrigerator, which grumbles about its old coils. That doesn’t happen very often, and I loved every chilling moment. If you are looking for a ghost story with thriller pacing and genuine scares, I Remember You is a winner.

Highly recommended. show less

A well crafted blend of crime novel and ghost story. [a:Yrsa Sigurðardóttir|747437|Yrsa Sigurðardóttir|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1267305974p2/747437.jpg] makes the most of the bleak and isolated Icelandic setting to ratchet up tension and draw us in to multiple stories. One involves three friends set on renovating an old house in a remote location accessible only by boat. In the next, a policeman and a psychiatrist investigate a 60 year old mystery that appears to having ongoing repercussions. And there is a third, having to do with the disappearance of the psychiatrist’s young son three years prior to these events.

This read was even more enjoyable than it might have been otherwise because my buddy-readers, Nancy and show more Lisa, and I each saw the book from a different perspective. Our wrap up zoom discussion session over the weekend pulled it all together in ways that heightened everyone’s appreciation.

I won’t say more about the plot here because separating reality from ghost story was part of the fun. Recommended for fans of ghost stories, or mystery readers who don’t mind some potential ghastliness thrown in show less

Read until about 150 pages and I couldn't take it anymore when the trio of morons on the island of the deserted village left their haunted house for a safer one and forgot the key. This isn't the first dumb thing - none of them has a clue what they're getting into. Not only do none of them know anything about DIY renovation, but they also apparently know nothing about where they are going. The island has no people except in summer and even then there's no electricity or phones. You'd think they'd have brought things that, you know, people with half a brain would bring. Like firewood. Batteries. Lanterns, flashlights - anything! Warm clothes. First aid supplies. Tools. Not only that, but they were the least physically fit people ever. show more Seriously, newly awoken coma victims would have more muscle tone, stamina, coordination and strength than any of them. They were all so stupid I couldn't wait for them to die. Unfortunately it took too long so I skipped to the end and skimmed until I found how the story elements came together. They did...and of course every single person in the stupid story is tied together. OMG it was so torturous. Boring. Every scene was way too long. Freyr was a moping, lying, cringing asshole and I couldn't muster the least sympathy for him even before the big reveal. Ugh. Never again Ms. Sigurdardottir. show less