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THE HARROWING
BY ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF
Review by Diana Bane
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Most readers who prefer novels of mystery and suspense are
fascinated by the big What If. Perhaps the biggest What If
of all is this: What If there is a whole other world out there
that we just can't see, and it's every bit as real as this
one? By asking that question we open the door into the realm
of the paranormal and the supernatural, aka the horror novel,
and many of us are crossover readers. However in recent years,
what with waning output from Stephen King and Peter Straub,
the quality of horror fiction has been rather thin. Book publishers,
following the lead of TV and film makers, seem to have decided
that the paranormal and the supernatural -- with the exception
of an occasional cozy ghost -- are material most fit for teenage
boys. Except, of course, for Buffy who is and will remain in
a category all by herself.
Well, Buffy lovers of all ages, and others, rejoice: Alexandra
Sokoloff is poised to change all that with her first novel,
The Harrowing. The Harrowing's subtitle is A Ghost Story, but
that's a bit misleading, because the story is much, much more
than that. True the characters, all five of them, are freshmen
in the fictional Baird College; true they encounter through
the use of a Ouija board an entity they intially think is a
ghost. But these students have qualities that make them older
than their chronological years, and their "ghost" soon
proves to have odd, alarming qualities that the five will spend
the rest of the book exploring. And we readers will get more
and more goosebumps as we go along on the exploration. Do not
start this book late at night, and be prepared for nightmares
when you are done.
The Harrowing is well written, with tight, economical prose
that is both effective and evocative. Sokoloff is able to be
visual without seeming to describe computer-animated special
effects, a pitfall so many writers of horror have failed to
avoid. My only criticism is I wish the book had gone on longer,
not because the story needed it, but because reading it had
been a pleasure of a sort that has grown too rare. I eagerly
await the next novel from Alexandra Sokoloff.
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