The Birthing House

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 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 show more 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

Oh my. Where to start. There were plenty of parts where the hair on the back of my neck stood to one end. It hit me by surprise too. (If any of you have read it, remember the popsicle doll part? argh!) I had the misfortune of reading that part at night right before bedtime. So, there is plenty of horror and suspense. The thing is, although the horror parts are very well written and enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, the storyline and characters don't really give the story substance or depth.

I didn't really like Conrad, or Joanna. Conrad hasn't grown up yet and still acts like an 18 year old teenager who still on raging hormone syndrome. Joanna doesn't help much with things either as she appears to be whiny, selfish, and acts show more like a B-movie diva. Despite the book's great horror moments, Conrad ruins it all with his Lolita moments with Nadia, his constant thoughts about not getting any "action", and his immaturity just has no boundaries. It can be quite eye rolling and very tedious.

What also bugs me, are some moments where things are mentioned, and then are just forgotten. Like the snakes Conrad has as a hobby. One of them undergoes a miraculous conception.....and....that's it. Then you have that strange family that used to live in the house before Conrad. They had children - not very normal children. Bad things had happened to them while in that house. Nadia used to babysit the kids. Then they moved out. Hrm. It's these kinds of details that needed explaining to make the plot and story more enjoyable and thus, more comprehensible.

Now here's the part that really bugged me. There was one single chapter dedicated to how he and and old ex girlfriend spent the night together making love. It was descriptive. It was long. It was very detailed. At that point I thought to myself "Why would you write a chapter all about that, and why should I care?" I actually skipped ahead. I found it unnecessary and didn't add anything to the story. So they had sex. Whatever. If I wanted detail and the dirt I'd get myself an erotic novel. I believe it's not needed here.

The ending was all right. It was something I did rather expect out of a horror novel. Although it did leave me feeling rather as if there should have been a lot more to it. Nevertheless it did succeed in getting me scared in certain parts of the book. It was too bad it fell short in other areas, and the chapter I mentioned above just nearly killed the book for me. Overall, if you don't mind these shortfalls and just want to read it for the thrills, go right on ahead. The horror moments of the book do deserve credit. 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 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 show more 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

This is one of those rare horror stories where each ambiguity builds both suspense and plot clarity, and where there are no heroes. Ransom's narrative is a slow-boiling horror novel that begins in a nearly pedestrian manner, and takes some time going forward, to the extent that one might wonder if it really is a horror novel even 100 pages in. By the end, though, the build-up has come to a point of true horror, both psychological and physical, even grotesque. As tales of haunted houses go, this is an original and interesting work, and a fast read. The pacing is all but perfect, and the characters are frighteningly believable. On the other hand, the narrative is so driven by plot, and so empty of sub-plotting, that I never really got to show more a point where I cared about the characters and their outcomes. I wasn't sure whether to expect the best or the worst, but it was only my interest in the story that kept me going. Thus, the final moments of suspense and conclusion lacked the power they might have held otherwise.

Certainly, I'd recommend this to folks who want a fast-moving plot-driven tale of atmospheric horror. For readers who enjoy horror driven by character, though, or readers who want to find sympathy and connection with the characters at hand, I'm not sure this is the best choice. Still, it was an interesting tale, and the bones of it may stick with me--it just won't garner a re-read or any true further thought. Maybe a truer test of the tale, though--I would pick up further work by Ransom; perhaps, it could have been shorter or given more depth, but it was both entertaining and well-done. show less

This debut novel was inspired by a dream. Ransom and his wife DID move into an old birthing house in Mineral Point, WI. They DID find an old sepia photograph of some of the women who lived and worked there. The dream did involve a woman with long black hair in a black dress pushing him down onto his bed. For the Ransoms, the nightmare went away when Chris finished the book. For the couple in the book, Conrad and Joanna Harrison, the nightmare only gets worse.

This book reminded me of 'The Shining' in the fact that a house, or what lives within it, comes to possess a man and drive him insane. But the writing is utterly original and completely creepy. I'm talking about checking the doors and windows and jumping at every little creak in show more your house as you read it creepy. The house wants life, and it goes to extraordinary means to get it. This is a very graphic book, both in violence and in sexuality. The faint of heart should not even crack the spine of this book. But those adventurous souls who enjoy the thrill of a gory ghost story will love this, especially fans of King, Koontz or Straub. show less

(Re-posted from http://theturnedbrain.blogspot.com)

A lot of horror, not that I'm any kind of expert in the genre, but it seems to me that a lot of horror is concerned with taking something familiar and twisting it. Making unsafe what was safe, making awful what was loved. Think clowns, or sweet little girls possessed by demons, or the quiet man next door turned into a zombie. And, of course, that old horror stalwart; the haunted house.

Because where are you supposed to be safer than within the walls of your own home? There's something uniquely unsettling about your own four walls turning on you, and nothing gets under my skin like a good old house haunting. Which is why, when I found myself in a department store faced with a truly show more depressing department store book display (Twilight! Books just like Twilight! Don't like Twilight? Then Jodi Picoult!) I pounced on Christopher Ransom's 'The Birthing House,' even though I'd never heard of it.

It turned out to be one of those books that presents itself in simply, but when you stop and think about you realised there was quiet a lot more going on then you first thought. Our hero, Connor, comes into some money and decides impulsively that a fresh start is just the ticket. So he leaves L.A. and buys a house in the country and tells his wife to join him, or not, whatever. (Not as harsh as it seems, his wife, Josephine, is not a very good wife, and possibly a cheater).

So far it's text book horror. Fresh start, countryside, new house. It's like he wanted to be haunted, right? Sure enough, it's not long before creepy happenings get to happening. Ransom haunts with an odd mix of subtle and ridiculously over the top. For example, Connor is in bed one night and he hears some odd scratching noises on the floor boards. Ransom expertly ratchets up the creepy factor with an agonizing slowness, and then the source of the noise is revealed to be a creepy ass little doll made of sticks. Still creepy, but it's also kind of like, 'wait? what?' It was a really unexpected juxtaposition of "modern" all show no tell horror and old school in your face horror.

Ransom builds the atmosphere expertly, with things growing steadily worse. Connor becomes more an more isolated from his wife, and this is mirrored by the growing feeling of wrongness in the house. Not surprisingly, what with the book's title, a lot of the books is concerned with sex and pregnancy. Not that there's an abundance of sex scenes, (I can remember two, maybe?). Ransom is much more subtle for that. (Mostly).

Which isn't exactly groundbreaking. House starts out great, house slowly turns out to be a seething pit of horror. Like I said at the start of this review, horror likes to make you think something is good and the reveal to be not so. And this is where Ransom impressed me. When the book opens you're really onside with Connor. He's a nice guy, and his wife seems like a bit of a jerk. And then, as the book goes on, you start to realise that just as Connor was wrong about his new house, it turns out that you the reader were kinda wrong about Connor.

I can't overstate how well Ransom pulled off Connor's character, and for me it totally makes the book. Again its that mix of subtle and not subtle that characterises the whole book. I don't want to say more on account of spoilers, so just trust me.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It's a quick and easy read without being too simple to hold interest. I will say that for me the ending fell apart in a major way, but I'm notoriously hard to please with horror endings. And in any case, I enjoyed what came before enough to forgive it, for the most part. show less

While leaving Chicago after burying his father, Conrad Harrison takes a wrong road and ends up in Wisconsin. He stops at a diner for a meal and stumbles across an ad for a home for sale in Black Earth, Wisconsin. The ad speaks to him and he feels compelled to follow up. Conrad purchases the house in hopes of moving with his wife to Black Earth. In Los Angeles, their marriage is foundering, infidelity and secrets are tearing them apart. Maybe a fresh start, far away from L.A. will save their marriage. A week after they move in, things change in the house. Conrad comes to know that they are not alone and things that often feel perfect in the beginning can change dramatically.

The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom is a debut novel that show more is alternately beautifully surreal and downright terrifying. It’s been a very long time since I read a book that actually scared me. Pulse pounding, turn on the lights and pull your feet up off the floor and tuck them under you type of scare me.

I don’t usually have any patience for surreal dream-like scenes in books, and this book had more than a few if those. I knew they should annoy me, they always do, and yet in this book, inexplicably, it worked for me, adding to the creepy atmosphere marvelously. I’ll admit to being a bit chagrined at the conclusion. The book ends in an almost open fashion that I suppose can be interpreted differently by each reader. And I usually prefer a solid ending. But it does make you think and reflect on the novel for a while after finishing it. If the author was looking for that, then he succeeded.

All in all, The Birthing House was an interesting read, creepy and intense. If you’re a fan of the genre, I think you’ll enjoy it. show less