In the Night Room

Peter Straub makes my head hurt. But in a good way. All through the contortionist metafiction that is this novel, I was amazed by his imagination. About ⅓ of the way through I figured out that this book is related to lost boy, lost girl, but I was hooked so continued. It features Tim Underhill, who also appeared in Koko and I think, The Throat, both of which are part of the Blue Rose trilogy. Haven’t read those yet, but I will. Not only is it his sheer imagination, but way to set the hook, Pete - “As soon as he had done so, he remembered dumping a couple of similar emails two days earlier. For a moment, what he had seen from the sidewalk outside the Fireside Diner flared again before him, wrapped in every bit of its old urgency show more and dread.” p1

More great little nuggets -
“...with the blank subject lines that indicated a kind of indifference to protocol he wished he did not find mildly annoying.” p6

“You with the funny name. Are we interested in another journey back to the antiseptic corridors of western Massachusetts? An hour or two in the Institute’s game room?” p11 (so between this sentence and pages 1-10 we now have madness, dead kids, vanished kids, creepy emails and a mental institution!! Way to pile it on!

“Nor was he {Faber} the product of the East coast privilege hatcheries responsible for {another character}. P 22 Privilege hatcheries!!

“After she seemed to have recovered sufficiently from the shock of her great loss, she returned to New York feeling like an unpeeled egg.” p 36

This is a really difficult book to talk about without major spoilers. It’s better to go in blind, especially if you like metafictional stories. Like many other of his novels, there’s a supernatural element to this one that you just have to go with. Like Jasper Fforde’s concepts, but darker. Much darker. Some things are easy to spot, like one of the major villains, but other things will blind side you and it’s fun. I’m going to have to get the other Tim Underhill books really soon before the details of this one fade. show less

*Partial spoilers ahead*

In all but the most literal sense, In the Night Room may be regarded as Peter Straub's final statement. He wrote one more novel after this, but A Dark Matter was a misfire: a lukewarm rehash of previously explored themes that never got off the ground. Night Room, for all its flaws, allows the reader to take one last, bittersweet journey back to Millhaven (Milwaukee) with Tim Underhill, the character that Straub described as his alter ego. Sixteen years earlier, Underhill had made his debut in the novel Koko along with Maggie Lah (a feisty character based on the late New York punk scenester Anya Phillips), and Maggie puts in a final appearance before Tim leaves NYC to give an author reading in Millhaven. But show more Underhill isn't just promoting his new book; he has a much more urgent task to perform. The line between fiction and reality has been blurring to an extent that even Tim, usually comfortable with such ambiguities, finds alarming. He has been informed--perhaps literally from beyond the grave--that his latest novel contains an egregious error, and that he must return to Millhaven to correct it. Underhill takes on a unique traveling companion who will play a central role in the rectification of that error.

This is a sequel to Lost Boy, Lost Girl, of course, but the tone is considerably different; the previous book unfolded largely from the viewpoint of Tim's teenage nephew Mark, and this amounted to a stylistic straitjacket for Straub. Here he returns to the adult point of view, making In the Night Room an almost infinitely smoother read. Underhill's companion is, on the whole, a charmingly written character, and their tense, melancholy journey back to Tim's hometown is the strongest section of the book. The narrative begins to fall apart once they reach Millhaven, however, and Phillip--Underhill's stolidly middle class brother--once again serves as a moral punching bag for limousine liberal Tim (i.e., Straub himself), who mistakes his own self-righteousness for enlightenment. (This intellectual and class snobbery is the single most unfortunate aspect of Straub's writing. If you're familiar with his work, you know that it's just part of the overall package, but at times it really grates. Certainly, it killed whatever feeble chance A Dark Matter may have had for redemption.) Underhill knows that he and his companion must enter the terrible old house where Mark disappeared, but concedes that he has no idea what to do once they've crossed the threshold. Sadly, the reader isn't given much of an idea, either. Something finally happens, but its full significance is unclear. The saga ends prematurely; Straub never wrote, or at least never finished, its third installment. We leave Tim Underhill in 2003, still promoting his new novel as he heads further west. (Behind him, two fictional hotels--the Pforzheimer and the St. Alwyn--continue to loom sinisterly against the Millhaven skyline, gauntlets that have never been picked up. Like the name "Underhill" itself, they are references not to the Midwest but to New York...and certain profoundly unpleasant real-life events that occurred there. Straub had been sprinkling these references throughout his work ever since Ghost Story, with that book being an especially abundant source of such clues.) Fans can only guess what future plans Straub may have had for Tim.

Ultimately, this uneasy ambiguity is what makes In the Night Room an interesting book. Underhill can be a pain in the ass, but we've become attached to him; he feels like an old friend, and there's a very real twinge of emotion that comes with bidding him such an uncertain farewell. Straub appears to have been saying a conscious goodbye of his own: to Tim and Maggie and the other characters from Koko, to the days when he was capable of writing grand, complex adventures of the kind they had in that novel, and perhaps even to novel-writing itself. "He gets out of bed to look through his window, and it's true: everything in his neighborhood seems slightly drained of color and energy. (...) Nothing new is ever going to happen to him again. From now on, he can only go backward, through older worlds, solving mysteries that have already been solved, and as if for the first time." show less

This novel is a sequel to 'lost boy, lost girl' which I had some problems with - I wroten about those in my review of that book - but sadly the present volume really went off the rails. As it opens, Tim Underhill, best-selling author, is writing a novel about a woman who is mentally fragile, imagining that her daughter - seemingly murdered along with her husband - is calling to her for rescue from a warehouse. Willy, whose name eventually turns out to be significant, is only able to tear herself away from breaking in by fixating on the Bluebeard-type character she is planning to sleepwalk into marriage with in the near future.

In the real world, Tim is having problems following the disappearance and probable murder of his 15-year-old show more nephew, Mark. Strange things start to happen, commencing with emails sent without subject lines from addresses with no domain name attached and featuring random disconnected words. Then a 'fan' who accosts him in a restaurant turns more and more creepy and aggressive, introducing the idea that there is a 'real' version of every novel - the perfect one that the author meant to write but lacked the ability to produce - and that this novel occasionally slips through from a higher plane. Certain collectors buy up loads of copies of books in the hope of finding the one copy that is perfect. This 'fan' objects strongly to 'lost boy, lost girl' which he views as lies - and that book does indeed turn out to be Tim's consolation to himself that his nephew was transported to a spiritual plane to live with ghost girl Lily Kalendar instead of his likely fate as yet another victim of a serial killer.

The basic premise of the current story is that Tim has erred against the universe by writing the book which assumed that Joseph Kalendar (an earlier serial killer) had murdered his daughter. Kalendar's ghost, given powers in the real world by Tim's portrayal, is now gunning for Tim and becomes merged with his Bluebeard character. Tim is informed of all this by a sequence of text-speak emails by someone styling themselves as Cyrax. This self-appointed guide, or 'gide', sends misspelled missives full of gems such as "rede y boke, rede the 1 with-in", which the unfortunate reader has to plough through and decipher. Under this 'guidance' Tim eventually takes Willy on a roadtrip back to his home town to "CO-RECK THE ERROR".

The idea about the one perfect copy of each book was interesting, but was buried under a pile of dross. I can't begin to enumerate the things that for me were wrong with this book. One of the worst was the development of Willy, who eventually makes her way into the real world, as a woman so fascinating that men are completely spellbound by her (apart, conveniently, from the Bluebeard character and his henchmen). She is frequently described as 'gamine' and her boyish figure is stressed, which became quite nauseating when it transpired that she 'converts' Tim, a lifelong gay man, who can't keep his hands off her. In turn, she finds him godlike in bed. I understood that this is a literary joke as she is his creation and in a way he is having sex with himself, but it was offensive on so many levels. (Willy, as a child's mispronounciation of Lily - since she is Tim's version of the supposedly dead Lily Kalendar - is really a sort of woman-as-penis given the slang meaning of her name.) Far from fascinating, I found her irritating, and her increasing gluttony for anything sweet was also a cause for queasiness. For me, there was no tension in the idea that Tim had to make amends and 'sacrifice' her as I couldn't wait for that moment to arrive.

Similarly, Tim's curmudgeonly brother is - very improbably - transformed in this book into a kindly, friendly, cheerful man purely by virtue of having met a nice woman who joined his school as a junior teacher and through her, 'finding religion'. This lacked any credibility given his previous portrayal in 'lost boy, lost girl'.

The supernatural elements that were once subtle in stories about Tim here take over with multiple appearances of his dead sister, another guide along the way, and an angry angel, plus the explanation of what happens to humans after death. Given the angel's powers , why was Tim's assistance required in any case? Altogether, this was such a mess that I couldn't envisage it ever having been published if submitted by an unknown author. It has put me off reading Straub at present, though I have a few books that pre-date this and which will hopefully be a return to form. So for me, the current volume scrapes a one-star rating. show less

Two authors are each having their own personal crises. Willy is a writer of young adult fiction and is coming to terms with the horrific murder of her husband and daughter. Falling under the control of a rich but coercive man, she is planning to remarry, but keeps having the strong conviction that her daughter is calling to her from an abandoned warehouse. Tim is a successful writer whose mind is unravelling. He is being emailed strange messages from untraceable addresses and has an encounter with an apparent fan, who turns out to be quite malevolent. One day Tim sees the ghost of his dead sister calling to him in the street and encounters a very pissed off angel in the centre of New York. Eventually Tim and Willy come together and get show more caught up in a supernatural web.
I've read some of Straub's work previously and enjoyed his writing. I have not read one called lost boy lost girl which is referenced throughout this story, and I think it was probably important to the plot. However, I did enjoy this book. The first 10% or so was a bit disjointed and confusing, but as Willy and Tim come together and the story takes a totally unforeseen twist it became gripping. This is a tale of the supernatural, but that doesn't dominate the narrative and once a few principles are established (there are angels, there is life after death) the story really lies more in sci-fi/thriller territory.. Straub has been very clever in creating an unexpected link between the two protagonists. Well-written, cunningly crafted and with tension right to the very end, I would recommend this one show less

I just love this strange novel for some reason. I love the strange twists and the whole idea of a character becoming real and not knowing they are a creation, not a person. The description of a fictional character noticing that his world dims mysteriously (his author dies, though he's also fictional...) is heartbreaking. Straub is such a weird fucker. But occasionally I love him madly.

Only a very small gap exists between the world of sanity and madness. Tim Underhill, a successful novelist, has bridged that gap on more than one occassion in his life. His writing often allows him the tools to save his mind and battle the demons dwelling in his psyche. Several of Peter Straub's other stories have followed Underhill's exploits, dating back to his days in Vietnam (Koko) and, most recently, the death of his nephew at the hands of a serial killer (lost boy lost girl). This novel pierces that fragile gap between sanity and madness at the same time a killer pierces the gap between the real world and the world of fiction.

The framework for Straub's stories sometimes mirror Underhill's own writing and publication. So, this show more book picks up following the publication of lost boy lost girl in Underhill's world. He begins receiving unusual email messges which he soon learns are from recently deceased friends and acquaintances. Soon, Underhill is contacted by a long dead spirit, residing in a sort of purgatory, who informs him that, in writing his last novel, he offended the spirit of the serial killer who killed his nephew. The offense lies in Underhill's speculation that the serial killer abused and murdered his own daughter. Because of the offense, the killer has slipped through to the real world and is pursuing Underhill. Willy, the heroine of Underhill's new book, In the Night Room, also escaped the world of fiction along with the killer. Underhill soon learns that Willy is a character embodying the killer's daughter who survived his abuse. Underhill must help Willy travel to the home where the killer's daughter suffered her father's abuse and face the the night room where that terror played out in the real world. In his efforts to help Willy, Underhill also faces his own troubled past and his own inner struggles to overcome evil.

Straub's writing is often too dense for my tastes. He strings together overly complicated sentences with intricate language. And I have never been a great fan of Underhill. So, my feelings about this novel were somewhat lukewarm. That said, there were several passages, most notably Underhill's reunion with an estranged borther and Underhill's interview of the fosterparent to the killer's daughter, which broke through. The story was always readable and enjoyable but only those few passages were notable for me. During those passages, it seemed that Straub was able to shed the dense language and the plot framework and allow the characters to connect to the reader.

3 bones!!!

For a classic horror story, I would highly recommend Straub's Ghost Story! show less

Author Tim Underhill is having a bad day. He gets weird emails that come from dead people- and also emails from an exceptionally rude angel. He sees his dead sister. A ‘fan’ approaches him as he has lunch, asking him to sign a whole bag full of books, proceeds to rant about finding the ‘real’, perfect version of books, and then stalks Underhill.

Willy Patrick, author of children’s books, is also having a bad day. She is convinced that her daughter is being held in a warehouse. But her daughter, and her late husband, were killed some time ago. She is well aware that this is a kind of madness, so she goes back home, to her incredibly wealthy fiancé’s house that she is moving into in preparation for their wedding. Her fiancé show more is very secretive about what he does and is a control freak. Quite by accident she finds that her fiancé may have had something to do with her husband’s and daughter’s deaths, and she finds herself on the run. She winds up meeting Underhill, and they both flee the area.

I found this book to be rather frustrating. Straub played with reality in ways that I found hard to follow for a good long time- which is okay for a while. Patrick is said to be the author of the book “lost boy lost girl”- which of course Straub wrote (and I suspect that ‘Night Room’ would be a lot easier to follow if one has read ‘lost boy lost girl’ first.) Some things are said to be from his imagination, but other things are supposed to be ‘real’. The plot takes its time to get anywhere, with many things introduced that ultimately don’t go anywhere and left me, at the end, wondering what that bit was all about and if I’d missed something. For example, the emails from Underhill’s dead acquaintances seem to merely function to let him know that something weird is happening; they have no impact on the story itself. But the thing that bothered me the worst is that the story completely failed to scare me. show less