Book Review: "Incidents Around the House" by Josh Malerman

I have to say, I'm not a huge Josh Malerman fan. I've read a few works by him and they're good reads but nothing that stands out as memorable. Nothing that I have felt in my bones. I have heard quite a bit about this book called Incidents Around the House and how strange and twisted it is with reviews basically saying that it was a cursed version of the 'monster in the closet' story. I am going to definitely say that this is perhaps his best book so far and if you read it expecting very little to come out of the story, then you're not paying attention. At the end of the book, everything falls into place. You see things you were never meant to see and ultimately, there's a lot in there.

The book deals with Bela, a child of a marriage on the rocks. Her mother has been hinted as a woman who has cheated on her father and there's a lot missing about the mother's own story. We see multiple other characters including the child's grandmother who seems to be tough as coffin nails. We also see a woman called Lois who wants to study how to get rid of the thing that has attached itself to this child. There have been many times where Bela so far, has been seeing a monster come out of her closet at night time. She sits and talks to the monster, she sometimes wants the monster to go away but there is a strange relationship between Bela and the monster.

Nobody believes her though. The 'Other Mommy' monster is just a figment of her imagination. Then her parents are hosting a party and Martha, a friend, screams at the fact that there is a horrifying monster in the room. Other Mommy has made it through the real world and she's getting closer. And closer. And when Bela is playing out with her friends, Other Mommy is outside. And when Bela is up at night time, Other Mommy is there. And after a while: her mother has seen it, her father has seen it, her grandmother has seen it - everyone knows it is there. Always there. And so, the family leave the home and run - they run from the house that's haunted with their daughter's demon but it follows and hunts her. It keeps asking the same question over and over again: it wants to be let in to Bela's heart. Bela never responds - in her mind, she will keep saying no. Josh Malerman creates such a terrifying atmosphere because we have a very small child, one that doesn't even understand the dynamics of her parent's relationship - a child so innocent that she is not even fully toilet trained yet. The fact that she narrates this story gives us a very odd perspective but it is also very frightening.

As the book moves on, the parents realise something the reader has known all along: the monster is attached to the child not the house. They refuse to give up their child to the monster but they have no idea what they have unleashed on the world. It seems like the demon/monster is causing chaos and death in it's wake. There seems to be no way out until one of the friends thinks of something so horrible that perhaps it should be thrown out completely. But will it work?

This book is a brilliant extended metaphor for childhood and the way in which adults often lie to children in order to keep their polished existence in the dark about reality. The main question about whether we should be telling children about the reality of our lives especially, if we are the parents of those children permeates the text with a constant drumming. I would say that this book has definitely changed my mind about Josh Malerman, he has gone from being simply another horror author to being pushed towards the top for me. This novel may not be frightening in the soul, but once you finish the book, you get to see how everything in the book led up to this moment - and it is not the ending you think it is.