Safe Return Doubtful

American Literature – Humour / pre-Apocalyptic – published 1986

For any potential readers, which I would massively encourage, this is not horror. It is a wonderfully humorous book with wonderful writing, a brilliant set of characters, and clever dialogue imbued with sarcasm. The humour may be dark, but it’s all that much better for it. It demonstrates Jackson’s talents as one of the greatest of writers.

It is the story of the Halloran House and its inhabitants, all of which are very much dislikeable characters. The most prominent is Orianna Halloran, whom we meet when the book opens, just after the funeral of her only son, Lionel. Other members of the family, notably Lionel’s widow and young daughter, openly accuse Orianna of killing Lionel by shoving him down the stairs, so that she could inherit the house.

Orianna is a nasty piece of work, cunning, ruthless, and shrewd. She has the others wrapped around her little finger. The extended Halloran family and staff who populate the home are put on guard when Aunt Fanny, Orianna’s sister-in-law and daughter of the late Mr. Halloran, who built the mansion, sees a vision of her departed father in the garden, by the sundial, and he informs Fanny that the world will shortly be consumed by flame, and all will perish, with the exception of those living in the house. Those, he can protect..

Gradually, the house acquires a small handful of new residents (including a stranger Aunt Fanny picks up on a street corner in town and nicknames ‘The Captain’, for reasons known only to her). What seems like the confused hallucination of a confused Aunt Fanny gains more credence with subsequent visions, and all who live in the home begin making preparations for the coming apocalypse.

There are several memorable set pieces, the meeting with The Society of the True Believers, and the section with young Fancy asking about her inheritance.

This time round (I have read it before), I listened to the audiobook, read by Kirsten Potter, and she does a great job.

I’ve read Jackson’s writing described as ‘domestic gothic’ and I like that term. I can see her influence in other authors whose writing I enjoy, Barbara Comyns, and Jess Kidd in her earlier work.

My GoodReads score 5 / 5