The Japanese maple in our garden is putting on a show. My husband moved it to the side of the house earlier in the year, and the reduced sunlight has made it very happy. It sits just next to our living room window, filling up most of the pane, and if I really squint when I peer outside over a cup of tea, I can just about pretend I’m in Kyoto. Admittedly, the London fog that’s blocking the view of all neighbouring houses helps with that illusion. Autumn mornings are my favourite.
At this time of year, when it comes to reading, I find myself gravitating towards the slightly odd and possibly sinister. Ghost story season, according to the Victorians, runs all the way up until Christmas, so still lots of time to engage with the otherworldly. The first book I pick up with ghostly inclinations is with ghostly leanings I pick up in this vein is The Echoes by Evie Wyld. I’ve adored her work for years, especially her novel The Bass Rock. Perfect for this time of year, it follows several women who inhabit the same house over generations. Whisperings of witchcraft persist — and by witchcraft, I mean women vilified for daring to stand up for themselves.
Her new novel, The Echoes, has the hilarious first line: “I do not believe in ghosts, which, since my death, has become something of a problem.” Max, a creative writing lecturer, finds himself haunting his London flat. He can’t remember how he died, and he can’t communicate with his partner, Hannah; so, he simply has to hang around and watch the world carry on without him. There is a tongue in cheek irony about fiction writing here. Max has always encouraged his students not to have ghosts as narrators, because it’s a difficult concept to pull off. Characters in stories captivate the reader with their capacity for change, but Max in The Echoes is incapable of the smallest action, let alone a developed character arc. Wyld answers this conundrum by splitting the narrative between Max and Hannah, past and present, to keep most of the novel in the land of the living, hovering around friends and relatives, too. However, all of the characters, alive and dead, struggle massively with this concept of ‘change’. They want to escape their own skin, move countries, transplant base emotions, and most of the time they find themselves stalling. Ironically, Max is the least haunted character of all of them. It’s an ambitious novel, covering a lot of themes and difficult topics in its two hundred pages.
The next book I pick up is a short story collection by Eliza Clark. She’s the author of Boy Parts and Penance, two really-gritty-get-under-your-skin novels, and I expect dark things from She’s Always Hungry. I am not disappointed. This is a book I’d put in the hands of fans of Saba Sams. From a teenage girl who will go to great lengths to acquire the ‘perfect skin’, to the title story which hums with unsettling folklore in a small town where men are driven mad by voices from the sea. One of my favourites in the collection, “The Shadow Over Little Chitaly”, is told in a series of JustEat reviews. Customers are drawn in by the ludicrous fusion of Italian and Chinese food. Punters are served wildly different dishes, all delivered by a mysterious man who tends to arrive mere seconds after their order has been placed, and who refuses to take off his motorbike helmet even though he’s driving a car. It’s laugh out loud funny, and also very unsettling.
Finally, inspired by our Japanese maple, I pick up a book that is strange but also warm. The Forest Brims Over by Maru Ayase, translated from the Japanese by Hadyn Trowell is about a man who uses his wife, and other women, as fuel for his writing, propagating their stories for his own gain. In a rage, his wife sprouts buds from her body and turns into a mighty forest, at first contained within their home, then wildly spreading throughout the town. As with The Echoes, it’s a commentary on writing. Denied her own story, the forest-wife takes over the ‘empty plot’ next door, and the husband’s editor walks through the forest, now able to see where all the husband’s ideas come from: the vibrant energy of his wife. It’s a magical realist tale of voice and agency, with ethereal, haunting scenes, and I very much enjoy spending time there.
Jen Campbell is a bestselling author and award-winning poet. She has written fourteen books for adults and children, the latest of which is Please Do Not Touch This Exhibit. She also writes for TOAST Book Club.
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