Instar — Ryder Brady

Hugh Murray, a man who married into money, is destined to spend a few weeks over the upcoming summer of 1976 at the house of his wife's aunt and uncle. The uncle's all right, but the aunt makes Hyacinthe Bucket (of Keeping Up Appearances fame) look like an unprincipled ninny in a housedress. Thankfully, we learn pretty early on, the rich aren't that much different, and the first few days go rather well, considering. The only really odd parts are the disturbing aunt and a strange, echoless screaming that occurs on foggy nights. One night, while Hugh is out walking, the fog rolls in, the screaming starts, and Hugh is in a place where he can investigate. He does, and as the result of his actions, he comes into possession of an odd little dog named Waffles. And that's when things start to get really weird.

Brady's got a lot to say about such topics as emotional diseases, the horrors of inbreeding, the Roman Catholic Church, and other such things that are (at least, according to Brady) shunned on the surface by New England bluebloods while they turn around and indulge in them when they thing nobody's looking. He also seems to have a lot to say about pastoral life and whether it's worth living. Unfortunately, not enough of it comes together to really get his message across, and thus while the drawing-room satire bit does make for a few chuckles along the way, it never really coheres. We're left with the horror of existence. Here, flipping the coin, it seems almost as if Brady were trying too hard to make this into a bona fide horror novel while still wanting to keep his allegiance to Sartre intact, and instead of blending the two as he was seemingly attempting, he ends up getting about three-quarters of the way to the meeting point on each side. There's a gap in the middle, but the reader should have little problem figuring out where everything was supposed to come together.