In our world of too many choices, not enough time to enjoy them, and consistently being guided by a divining rod of information, it is fitting that the modern site of horror would be the home. Generations of "Do not go into that house, Timmy!" have now been replaced by the realistic fear of "What's that tap-tapping in my ceiling?"
Horror of the supernatural variety has long been brought home. Watch the wrong TV show and you die in seven days. Play with that Ouija board and unleash hidden forces. Ghosts and their legends are part of everyday life going back hundreds of years. In Mississippi alone, the hauntings have even become tourist attractions. However, one would dare to say that those apparitions just are not as scary as they once were.
Sara Gran has been busy writing for nearly 25 years. Her prose is lean and light on detail, resulting in a work that is easily digested and hard to get away from. Her debut novel, 2001's "Saturn's Return to New York," wisely sidestepped the Bridget Jones-style craze instead of having its protagonist trying to renew a lost relationship with her mother as a benchmark for becoming an adult. Gran's main character knew that no one could change her life but herself.
There is a residual amount of that person in the lead of her second work, 2003's "Come Closer." Amanda is a successful architect, but something in her life is gnawing away at the level of satisfaction she draws from it. Gran writes as elegantly as Patricia Highsmith but uses none of the atmosphere of doom one might associate with a horror novella.
Our story opens and we discover that Amanda is turning in a report to the head of the small architectural firm where she works. Gran makes certain that the event feels like a non-event. Suddenly, she is summoned and asked incredulously about some unsavory comments that appear in the text. Mischief and mayhem typically go hand-in-hand in the playground of disturbing events.
We see Amanda and her husband Ed in their renovated and strangely secluded home. Amanda and Ed live so far away from most major activity that even crime does not bother to circle their happy home. However, something is circling in the ceiling. They constantly hear "tap-tap" - always in multiples of two, perhaps like feet or hands above them. In the beginning, the pursuit is almost too much fun. They are jointly searching for this bothersome sound and slightly reveling in the thoughts of a mouse bringing them this mountain of trouble. As they get used to its patterns, Amanda notices that the "scratching" only occurs when she is there. In several inspired passages, Gran has Amanda using all the available distractions in the home to "drown" it out (as we all would). From our standpoint, Gran keeps the prose swift and repetitive to nearly match how those thoughts pass manically through our brains when we cannot quite gain control of a situation we should.
This scratching (and the isolation) has awoken some level of dissatisfaction in both Amanda and Ed. While Gran allows us to mostly visualize their relationship through Amanda's eyes, she is careful to describe his reactions as less than helpful. When the problems begin to tap-tap on their own, Gran is even more careful that Amanda narrates Ed as she is giving him the benefit of the doubt, although reacting far more viscerally. This "acting out" provides an excellent counterpoint for readers to understand that perhaps this too is part of their "patterns."
However, Amanda has a high-pitched weird dream where she plays with a woman in the waves on a crimson beach. The woman named Naamah is strangely attentive to Amanda in this dream and, of course, she likes it. Her thoughts about Naamah provide an unsettling comfort to Amanda, and her familiarity reveals that as a girl Amanda had an imaginary friend named Pansy. From roughly age six until age nine, Pansy provided Amanda with an unspoken love when she was again isolated (and recovering from the loss of her own mother). Much thought is given to the similarities between Naamah and Pansy, and Ed participates but remains distant. As a result, Amanda tries to shelve the whole matter.
WE COULD DEVOTE our lives to making sense of the odd, the inexplicable, the coincidental. But most of us, don't, and I didn't either.
The more Amanda and Ed lose sight of each other's needs and admiration, the more Amanda becomes guided by a mysterious "inner voice":
Just drink the whiskey.
You know you want to smoke that cigarette.
Why not skip going home to have a drink in that dirty, run-down bar.
Gran gives the reasons for "enjoyment" of these temptations, but is careful that we never quite lose sight that Amanda is purposefully doing wrong.
In need of inspiration for a project, Amanda orders the book "Design Issues Past and Present." When her package arrives and she opens the box, the book she received is "Demon Possession Past and Present"; an interesting mistake, but understandable. So, she flips it open, where it first asks her to take a quiz.
Number one on the list: "I hear strange noises in my home, especially at night, which family members tell me only occur when I am present." Hiding the book on the shelves, the tap-tap becomes louder that night and more concentrated, harder to shake. The dreams become more vivid as well, with chilling detail.
She put her arms around me and pulled me tight against her. Our ribs crushed together and our hipbones slammed and she pulled me tighter until I couldn't breathe, I was choking, and my spine met hers, vertebrae against vertebrae.
After yet another tiff, Amanda and Ed are starting that terrible process of trading the ground they live on together for spite. Amanda now smokes in the house (Ed is allergic); Ed just rolls his eyes. At the drugstore, Amanda is admiring a deep red shade of lipstick while Ed waits for his allergy medication. When he picks up his medicine, he grabs Amanda and they exit the store — only to set off the alarm as the lipstick has mysteriously made its way into Amanda's purse. Then one too-warm summer night, in a state of detente as Ed watches a WWII documentary on TV, Amanda thinks, "What if I stuck Edward with this cigarette?"
Gran's novel does not need to take all the twists and turns we associate with horror. Unlike reading the classic horror literature where the supernatural comes home, we do not need to stop and think "is that weird?" "Come Closer" keeps its feet firmly in reality and your mind melds with Amanda. When the strange occurrences and sinking feelings come into play, you only stop to think, "Is this me? Is this in my home?!" Oh, and DO NOT take the quiz.
—
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
New MUSIC this Week
FIRST ... A CORONATION
Let us be the first to crown 2024's Best Album. It is simply a task that cannot wait. If anything, there should be paintings on thrones of A.G. Cook, George Daniel and the late Sophie (whose impact is sadly not well represented by the posthumous album from this year). With the release of "Brat and It's Completely Different But Also Still Brat," Charli XCX doesn't so much take a victory lap as raise the bar on what some could see as "Charli's Version."
Here's the thing: Charli's original "Brat" (also included in the package for comparison) stripped down everything from throttle-pushing "Crash" from 2021. "Crash" took Charli's past (many ideas at the behest of big-name producers and collaborators) and shook it up to try to become a seminal pop album. The irony is that "Brat" could care less about acceptance in any realm outside of the dancefloor. Months later, it became a seminal pop album because of how Charli's devil-may-care, take-me-as-I-am, fame-sucks-but-I-love-it abandon shattered the glass ceiling of pop and let everyone bask in the fresh air.
How did Charli do it? It feels like we will never know. Her interviews are always semi-involved, where she is gracious in regard to providing some juicy details while either conceding or concealing others. This makes her more like royalty, carefully controlling the "brand" (a word that needs to disappear) and always gracefully giving credit to the rabid fanbase. On its surface, "Brat" is a statement of purpose, aggressive in its pursuit of the Dionysian ("360" and "Von Dutch") while unapologetic in the confusion of what we will call the "results of fame." Charli wants fame, but wisely never takes the devil's bargain to get there, nor gaze too long in the funhouse mirror it provides. "Sympathy is a Knife," a long debated cut, mixes feelings about how other women see her and her public perception. On the "remix" album, Charli enlists Ariana Grande and the two run down a laundry list of changes since the original dropped, focusing most notably on the duality of the artist that meteoric fame brings. In a stroke of brilliance, Charli's self-doubt in the original ("George says, 'I'm just paranoid.'") becomes more focused ("It's a knife when they are counting on your mistakes / It's a knife when you're so pretty they think it's fake.")
What the "Brat" remixes involve is far more than "Charli's Version;" it is as if she is managing to sharpen what already were her most cutting statements. "Guess" with Billie Eilish is even more ribald and hyper-focused on the connection between two people. "Talk Talk" may lose its winning chorus (sacrificed in the name of not going pop) but with tourmate buddy Troye Sivan, it demonstrates their ESP-like communication. Oh, Charli may drastically change "I Might Say Something Stupid" and "Everything is Romantic" to be less "artist-friendly" and more a glimpse at being in love and being far away. However, she is honing in on how "Brat" gave her the freedom to explore her issues with the past (working them out in real-time with Lorde on "Girl, So Confusing") and future (the pinpoint analysis on "I Think About It All the Time" morphs from seeing a baby "waking up" the idea of having one to the decision making between George and Charli "because there's so much guilt involved" when we "stop working").
Much has been theorized and routinely discussed as even your pop star allegiance places us in yet more tribalism. The simple fact is that Taylor Swift could learn from this success and other 2024 successes. Not slagging on her, but Charli did it by almost completely going against the grain and being herself. 2024 was the year of female pop stars. Remi Wolf's double-tracked vocals are about to become de rigueur. Sabrina Carpenter (wisely-chosen Taylor tour opener — all credit given to her) and Renee Rapp returned fiery charisma to center stage. Billie Eilish (like Charli) dared to make a record her way (which she valiantly earned, may we say) and erupted into adult stardom without being overt. Chappell Roan finally arrived to tell it like it is and it will be.
"Brat" and its counterpart are the event that will define 2024 culturally for years to come. All hail Charli XCX!
AND NOW THIS WEEK
DEAN LEWIS - The Prologue [LP/CD] (Island/Republic) • One note, up front. Reviews like this are painful. Dean Lewis is clearly a young, talented singer with a great emotive voice. Likely signed in the wake of Ed Sheeran, Lewis has already racked up five cuts over 500k streams and one topping 1.8 billion; so, not shooting him down for his success. If anything, reaching that level of saturation this quickly should allow for a higher level of scrutiny (and the standards that go with it). If you are ever listening to a song and feel like you know what is coming next ("All I Ever Wanted") because of your "connection" to the artist — always look for the cliches. Lewis, while young and new to this, is just ticking the boxes left and right ("long way from home," "love you like no one is watching" and "makin' promises that we wouldn't change.") While these are universal feelings, their predictability deters from Lewis' originality. His heartfelt duet with Sasha Alex Sloan is even more repetitive to the point of being maudlin (and already existing on YouTube in a "wedding version" is a little much as well). Next time, use that thinking ahead in your lyricism and find a way to stand out — it is the only way to survive in this world.
WILD PINK - Dulling The Horns [YELLOW LP/CD] (Fire Talk/Redeye) • It takes a lot of gumption to write and sing about how deeply unsatisfied you are with life after surviving cancer. John Ross' deeply-felt love letter to the world in 2022's "ILYSM" is flipped upside down. "Dulling" collects the myriad feelings of exhaustion into a weird new style of "Heartland Rock." John Ross-via-Mellencamp rolls out blam-blam hooks ("The Fences of Stonehenge") and undercuts them with cryptic lyrics that have fatigue fading into memories ("St. Catherine's St." and "Sprinter Brain.") At his most Neil Young, Ross closes the album with a thrilling, time-signature, riff-laden trip through the wreckage on the heartfelt "Rung Cold." While more challenging than most records, "Dulling" is not designed to sock you in the face with hooks. Instead Wild Pink just wants to roll over you like the steamroller that got them. Excellent.
JAPANDROIDS - Fate and Alcohol [CLEAR LP/CD] (ANTI/Epitaph/AMPED) • There was a moment in time when the exploits of this powerful duo, now the pair looks to draw the curtain before they grow too old to provide propulsive ("Chicago") and emotional/confessional rock ("All Bets Are Off.") As always, they keep it simple and forceful.
JERRY CANTRELL - I Want Blood [BLOOD RED LP/CD] (Double J) • Alice In Chains guitarist/mastermind Cantrell finally revisits their grunge-period (to be clear, they were not grunge) ROCK including members of Guns N' Roses, Metallica and Faith No More. Cantrell has always been effective at layering his guitars to make a full-bodied enveloping sound. However, "I Want Blood" looks at Cantrell adamantly refusing to "sand the edges down" in favor of making songs that are bare-fisted ROCK.
ESCUELA GRIND - Dreams on Algorithms [BLUE LP/CD] (MNRK) • Salem, Mass.'s extreme metal ragers Escuela Grind follow up their tour with Napalm Death with a blazing wildfire set of galloping ("Always Watching You"), squealing ("Concept of God"), crushing rock. As always they are at their best when vocalist Katerina Economou actually gets to sing ("Turbulence"). I'm looking forward to more of this in the future.
JENNIFER HUDSON - The Gift of Love [CD] (Interscope) • Grammy/Emmy/Tony winner Jennifer Hudson rolls out her first Christmas album with a soulful-yet-traditional collection of favorites ("Jingle Bells," "Winter Wonderland" and "O Holy Night") mixed with some new tracks that she will debut on tour.
