In the Midst of the Sea
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- 10,99 €
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- 10,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
Trapped in an isolated old house on Martha’s Vineyard in winter, Diana Barlow is either seeing ghosts or losing her mind … After an estrangement from her parents, Diana came to Martha’s Vineyard to start a new life with her husband Ford and young daughter Samantha. The beautiful Victorian house that Ford inherited seemed the perfect home for a fresh beginning. But in the winter, when the tourists go home and the island is deserted, Diana is afraid she’s going crazy. Specters of people long dead flicker in and out of her vision. The antique dolls in her house never stay where they’re put. Samantha suddenly has a whole group of imaginary friends who live in the house and tell her terrible things. And Ford is becoming increasingly moody, unpredictable, and violent. While Diana investigates the horrifying history of the house, the past, the present, the living and the dead fatally intertwine, and Diana realizes she and her daughter must escape ― if Ford and the house will let her.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McCarthy's debut is a technically well-wrought but thematically worn-out tale of psychological horror that makes an exhibition of misogyny without substantive engagement. It's 1994, and newlywed 20-somethings Diana and Ford Barlow move to the hamlet of Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, having inherited an 1870s Victorian there from Ford's great-aunt. They are in flight from abusive families Diana's dominated by a toxically Catholic mother, Ford's by an incestuous pedophile of a father. Ford originally charmed Diana with kindness to her daughter, Samantha, and Diana now resignedly excuses his drinking, emotional distance, and abuse. The house is oppressive, and Ford is obsessed with its decorative dolls and with some experience in the cellar that he won't discuss. Diana finds a diary down there, purportedly written by Elizabeth "Cassie" Steebe and detailing the disintegration of her marriage to Hiram, a Wesleyan zealot whose ostracism by the townsfolk led him to construct the house. The parallels spiral into a multigenerational spectacle of male fury that goes largely uncountered by its female victims at least while the women are still alive. McCarthy's writing is capable, but he does nothing new with the age-old story of harm, vengeance, and haunting.
