Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman
Del Rey (June 2024)
Reviewed by Dave Simms
The early buzz about Josh Malerman’s newest novel was high. Yet, an eight-year-old narrator? How is that scary? How could he pull off detailed, intense scenes with a sense of dread through an entire novel? I wish I knew, but all doubts fell by the wayside after a few chapters. Incidents Around the House is a stunning achievement in the most fascinating ways.
Here’s the secret: Josh Malerman must be a secret psychologist. The manner in which he inhabits each character and becomes them is uncanny. As someone who teaches child and developmental psychology, I know the difficulty in getting the viewpoint correct. The cognitive abilities of an eight-year-old are vastly different than an adult’s, especially through the lens of perception, emotional awareness, concrete versus abstract understanding, and problem solving. Rarely does an author outside of picture books get this right, and even then, the burrowing into a child’s mind is superficial at best.
Why did Malerman do so? It’s possible that he understands this point of view strips away all the mental garbage most grownups deal with daily, especially when it comes to primal emotions. Bela is concerned with none of that. It’s all simple experience, cause and effect, emotions and reactions. The basics, most of what we lose as we “grow up.”
When Bela first meets the “Other Mommy,” the thing residing in her closet, she wants to be its friend, yet the fear she also feels is pure — so the reader’s connection to it is direct. The primal reactions are innate and with the writing and thought process of someone so young, the reader doesn’t have to meander through colorful language, metaphor, and imagery. When the fear comes, it’s a virtual slap to the face that isn’t muffled by an author’s flair.
Young Bela lives with Mommy, Daddo, and often visits Grandma. It’s a simple life for her, one that many would love to revert to. Yet Other Mommy asks the chilling question: “Can I go inside your heart?”
To a child, it sounds like a plausible option. Bela doesn’t want to allow this, but she’s a sweet girl and wants to make friends.
When her parents find out, they react like most adults would. One of the most compelling components to this novel are the realistic reactions from parents who do NOT act in horror trope manners. When they are exposed to what the Other Mommy can be, or what it can do, they avoid the idiotic decisions that many characters would. They make mistakes, are far from perfect people, but bust their ass to save their little girl. Where this novel goes is simply chilling. It’s not a slow burn yet it does take its time to dig its way into the reader’s psyche, a cool trick of Malerman’s that works beautifully. Once it grabs hold, it’s game over.
Believe the hype on this one.
Highly recommended.
