I won’t be using words like masterpiece or homerun, or the usual hyperbole punted around too easily in reviews these days, but Nick Roberts is a writer to reckon with and his The Exorcist’s House: Genesis is rather a bold attempt at moving the exorcism-horror trope a rung up on the ladder of creativity, through a more complex story structure tied into his growing novel-verse, centered around a recurring evil. It doesn’t reach quite high enough, though, with its overarching story split across twenty-seven chapters alternating between two distinct timelines that don’t mesh until one, by necessity, takes precedence toward the end. It is as if Roberts wrote two novels, then decided to combine both into one. Each half moves itself up the ladder, but the two main timelines and their multiple past and present events and summaries, to tie in Robert’s prior novel, The Exorcist’s House, serve only to stifle the main narrative flow, killing its suspense-building and leading to a one-sided climactic battle (which, not so surprisingly, primes the next book in this exorcism-fueled novel-verse).
The more immersive narrative comes from the backstory timeline of 1967 with Merle Blatty, whose farmhouse becomes the titular epicenter of evil. Merle is quite a character: plain spoken, simple-living, smokes too much, but he is a reluctant yet determined exorcist. Note Merle’s last name too, which is a nod to William Peter Blatty, who wrote the granddaddy of them all, The Exorcist (and its sequel, Legion). Roberts gives nods to other fictional works here and there, usually through a character’s dialog. Horror fans may find that gratifying, but it tends to pull at the threads of Robert’s own storyline logic with these incessant, wink-wink, intrusions.
The 1967 timeline begins with chapter one, and what a chapter it is. Not only the best chapter in the book, but an exemplary chapter that sets a tone and mood that fails to continue through the alternating timelines of Merle’s for 1967 and 1973, and those of the Hill Family for 1997. Every action and description in chapter one is saturated with Merle’s determination and the evil power he is up against as he meets the Spider—the main entity of destruction hopping into Merle’s life and taking up residence in his farmhouse—through a visit to Ward F, the criminally insane ward of Weston State Hospital.
From there the book alternates between Merle’s trials and tribulations and Daniel Hill’s struggle against the ever-increasing terrors facing his family in 1997 when his none-too-bright brother Adam, looking to do an Amityville Horror-styled expose for quick money, returns to the farmhouse and opens the well in the basement–actually rather easily, given how it was supposed to be sealed good and tight after the last foray into the supernatural.
The well provides the otherworld portal between the story’s here, and the hellish there, and a cramped home for the Spider, an emissary (outcast?), looking to please something older, more powerful, and just as malevolent. Robert’s Spider is a unique supernatural character in that it is serving (or hopes to serve and impress) another being who seems indifferent to it, to curry favor and personal stature. It is also described as having combined demonic and human qualities, giving it the power to send strands of control through minds and souls across great distances, even when sealed in the well. So anxious to please its master, the Spider’s intentions provide a depth to its nature and goals, creating a more dimensionally fleshed-out creature beyond its usual deadly persuasions while still keeping it all very mysterious and even pitiable, like some Igor-like mad scientist’s assistant. While Roberts is not one for lengthy character descriptions, he does devote his best efforts to the Spider’s gory handling of anyone, either possessed or getting in the way, with aplomb.
The 1997 timeline kicks into high gear as it moves between the two Hill brothers, Daniel and Adam, as Adam unwittingly unleashes the Spider from the well and both Daniel’s family and Adam’s friends fall under the Spider’s growing control, increasing the body count gore and the blood flow. Two priests, although mentioned in flashback and in the current predicament, remain mostly referred to instead of active participants until the climax, which, given the buildup Robert’s painstakingly assembles through his complicated narrative structure, makes priestly intervention less stellar than anticipated. Remember how Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining treated the Dick Halloran character? That’s the same treatment given in the final battle between the Spider, Daniel, a priest, and assorted living and dead family members: lots of build-up to a too quick and one-sided, mostly, ending.
A simpler story structure and more good versus evil give and take would have made The Exorcist’s House: Genesis a stronger entry on the exorcism theme. But as a critic, my jaded mileage varies from yours, the reader, who just wants a good horror to snuggle up to. If that is where your mileage takes you, then, yes, Nick Roberts provides enough terror and bloody bits to make you want to snuggle up with a hot drink, a single light on, and this novel, especially if you have already read The Exorcist’s House. He may also sour you from visiting old farmhouses with old wells in their basements too, but that’s entirely on him. I personally find such places way too creepy anyway. I recommend you read the Merle Blatty chapters completely through before turning to the Hill Family’s struggles in their chapters. Taken in that order the horror mood may just leap up at you even more.
John M. Cozzoli, Staff Book Reviewer for The Horror Zine
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