The Visitors

Marion and her brother John live together in their childhood home, in a seaside tourist town in Northern England. Their parents died decades ago, but stupid, dependent Marion never left home, never experienced life, and is now regretting it. John had been a teacher but was fired and came home with his reputation ruined.
He's an angry, manipulative man who Marion both loves and fears, just as she feared everyone in her family. She is also frightened every time she hears those screams that come from the cellar, where John spends his time teaching math and science to the Eastern European women he tricks into coming to their house.
This story is told by Marion in her own memories and viewpoint, of her childhood with her cold parents who show more preferred their intelligent, deviant son over spineless Marion, and her shame over having nothing to love but stuffed animals. Marion takes the reader from pity to horror, and we see that she's more like her brother than she will admit. Highly recommended. show less

50-something Marion Zetland lives with her older brother, John, in a cluttered, crumbling manor house in a down-at-the-heels northern English resort town. John and Marion inherited the house and a comfortable income from their parents. As a young man John pursued a teaching career, which ended abruptly in scandal, and he has lived at home ever since. Marion, who pursued neither education nor career, has been a doormat all her life: bullied as a child by her brother and her schoolmates, relentlessly mocked and belittled by her emotionally withholding mother, she has grown into an indecisive, timid, fearful and agonizingly unassertive middle-age woman lacking any sense of self-esteem or self-worth. Overweight and ashamed of her show more appearance, she spends her days in aimless lethargy, watching television and daydreaming. It is true that Marion cares for her brother, cooking his meals and performing household chores, but one thing she knows for certain is that she must never go into the basement. The basement is John’s domain, and what he does down there with “the visitors” Marion doesn’t want to know. In fact, if she has nurtured any kind of talent at all over the years, it is an aptitude for remaining wilfully oblivious to things that are too painful or odious to acknowledge. John’s shameful secret drives the action, and through the early chapters Burns uses flashbacks to fill gaps and hint at what is really going on. Eventually a crisis forces Marion out of her lethargy and gives her no choice but to face a secret she has spent her entire adult life trying to ignore. Catherine Burns’ first novel generates enormous tension and suspense. It is also truly creepy and disturbingly plausible. Admittedly, we never grow to like Marion. In many ways she is as loathsome as her brother: a reluctant partner in reprehensible acts whose inaction is criminal and repugnant. But we do cheer her on, as she climbs out of her shell and turns the tables on a world that has treated her like shit her whole life and to which she owes absolutely nothing. In the end, Marion’s survival comes across as a moral victory, the only one this bracingly cynical and hugely entertaining novel is prepared to offer its reader. show less

Marion is a sixty-something woman who isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. She lives with her older brother John in their childhood home. John spends much of his time down in the basement. Marion doesn't like to think about what's going on down in the basement, and mostly ignores the occasional muffled screams and moans emanating therefrom.

This is a creepy novel, and it felt entirely plausible. It reminded me of a tale by Shirley Jackson or Patricia Highsmith, with sociopathic characters hanging onto the fringes of normalcy, with the deep foreboding of an undercurrent of evil beneath the mundane details of the everyday.

Recommended.

3 stars

I loved this book; it's dark, skincrawlingly creepy and disturbing but so compelling that I couldn't tear my eyes away from the page. Whilst gathering my thoughts after reading The Visitors, I began to realise how very cleverly written it is. To stir such intense feelings in a reader is no mean feat but that is exactly what Catherine Burns has done with this, her outstanding debut novel.

It starts with a scream in the night that made all my hairs stand on end when Marion isn't alarmed but instead is worried that her neighbours might have heard it. In just the second paragraph, Marion refers to 'them' as my stomach somersaulted at the thought of who could be trapped in the cellar. My feelings for Marion then became confused as she show more remembered her childhood: a time of cruel name-calling and lacking any real friends. Marion never seemed to fit in anywhere and my heart went out to this child-like woman in her fifties, whispering her dreams of falling in love to her toy teddies.

Marion lives with her brother, John, in the family home. As children, John was the high-achiever whilst Marion was the disappointment, but appearances can be deceptive and it is clear that John has a very dark side. How much of this dark side of John was nurtured by his father is unclear, but 'like father like son' springs to mind as their mother blocked it all out with her little white pills. Now that John and Marion are older and their parents have died, it's quite scary to see how complicit Marion is in John's crimes. The big question is: does she know what she is doing or is John taking advantage of her? When John is taken into hospital, Marion is forced to go down into the cellar to tend to 'The Visitors' and, finally free from her brother's watchful gaze, that's when we see Marion's true colours.

The Visitors is so very thought-provoking as I think we have become a bit lapse over the years with regards to the internet. When we first started to go online, it was new and exciting but we quickly discovered that the internet could be used to hide anybody's identity. I remember being very wary of internet 'friends' and being frightened that they weren't who they said they were. Despite many stories of child grooming, I think we, myself included, have become more careless and neglectful over the years by taking those online at face value; but just whose face are they using? I would be very loathe to arrange to meet somebody I met online these days as I think more than ever that the internet is a hunting ground for sexual predators luring lonely, vulnerable and innocent people into their trap. I've really scared myself now but I love it when a book makes me think about things long after I've turned the final page.

The Visitors is an extraordinary debut novel; it is impeccably written with an enviable ability to stir a myriad of emotions in the reader. I have never switched my emotions back and forth so often over a character. Very highly recommended but prepare for your skin to crawl as you encounter The Visitors in the cellar.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion. show less

This novel was advertised as a cross between Room and Grey Gardens. While I've never read Grey Gardens, I can definitely say that this is not at all like Room and making that comparison is a misnomer. In fact, it led me astray in terms of my expectations. However, that does not in any way mean that I didn't like this novel. In fact, I loved it! This was a slow burning, tension-building story that seriously creeped me out by the end. If anything, I would describe this novel as more of a character study of Marion and John, told from Marion's perspective. She talks about her life and how people view her as timid and plain. She talks about how much she depends on her brother, John, and how she never feels like she is good enough. She wishes show more for a great deal and in the beginning, she seems to have a simplistic mindset ... but it becomes clear near the middle/end that she is much smarter than one might have thought. While there is never any doubt in the reader's mind that John is the main villain, this story makes the reader question the responsibility and culpability of a "bystander" like Marion. The premise of the story reveals most of what this book about, but for once, that doesn't bother me because the plot isn't the real interesting aspect about this book; it is watching how Marion evolves and changes that is of real interest to the reader. To be quite honest, I think this is a really fantastic and dark read that looks at a horrendous situation in a very different light. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a slow but creepy book, and who is not wary of gruesome content.

I received this novel as an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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The Visitors is Catherine Burns' debut novel. I was intrigued by the cover. Something so simple - peeling wallpaper - and yet it somehow promised a darker read.

Who knows what lies behind the face presented to the world? What goes through someone's mind? What happens behind closed doors?

Fifty something spinster Marion lives with her older brother John in the house they grew up in. Nothing much in the house has changed since their parents died decades ago. Well, a few things.......there are visitors of John's in the cellar. Marion never goes to the cellar. In fact, she chooses to try and never acknowledge that there are 'visitors' in the basement. Instead, she finds solace in her stuffed animals and imagining friendships, relationships show more and situations that are a far cry from the life she is living. Marion is somewhat simple people say. Not so her brother John - he's intelligent - and manipulative.

Burns is just as manipulative with the reader. My thinking was one way as I started the novel, drawn into the story, but hesitant to turn the next page. It's impossible not to though - I wanted to see what path Burns would lead me down. Her descriptions of the siblings, their personalities and their actions produce a myriad of reactions in the reader - from sadness, to sympathy, to disgust, to apprehension and more.

And it seems like life will continue along this path for Marion....until the day John falls ill and lands in the hospital. And it falls to Marion to see to the visitors. And what happens next is not at all what I expected.....

Oh my, what a dark, disturbing novel! The premise has it's roots in reality, having taken inspiration from many newpaper reports. What Burns has done is imagine the mindset of someone who knows what is happening, but doesn't act. And what could have led to this inability to act.The flashbacks to Marion and John's childhood days are saddening, disturbing and a testament as to how childhood trauma can shape a person's future. The Visitors does not focus on lurid, descriptive details of what is happening in the basement. Instead it is a character study of John and Marion, their dysfunctional relationship and what shaped them. It is through Marion's eyes and memories that we see this.

I loved The Visitors - it was a very different read - unexpected, unpredictable and so addicting. I can't wait to see Catherine Burns' second novel! show less

Oh this was so creepy and upsetting, and full of completely unredeemable characters. Sometimes a book is about bad people but twisted so, in a way, you root for them, but this one was really akin to lifting something in a garden and seeing dozens of squirming maggots. I think it was a success in what it was trying to do, but I did not enjoy the experience.