Slade House
| Author | David Mitchell |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre |
Horror Drama Mystery |
| Published | 2015 (Sceptre) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 233 (special edition, hardback) |
Slade House is the seventh novel by British novelist David Mitchell. The novel received mixed reviews. Slade House originated as a Twitter story which was then developed into a full novel, and is a companion to The Bone Clocks. Set between the late seventies and the present, the novel explores the mysterious Slade House and a number of characters who are drawn to it.
In 1979 Nathan Bishop and his mother are invited to the house of the respected Lady Grayer. Nathan is quickly acquainted with her son Jonah, and the two spend the afternoon in the garden of Slade House whilst Norah Grayer entertains Nathan’s mother. Nathan begins hallucinating strange people and other visions and becomes worried that the Valium he took from his mother is having a bad effect. After being invited into the house he experiences more hallucinations before finding himself at his fathers lodge in Rhodesia. This dream is quickly broken by the Grayers, who reveal themselves to be twin siblings and carnivorous Anchorites, beings who steal the souls of certain people to maintain their youth. The Anchorites conduct a ceremony, and feast on Nathan’s soul.
In 1988 a detective inspector Gordon Edmonds is investigating Slade Alley, and stumbles into the garden. There he meets a widowed woman named Chloe Chetwynd. While they talk Edmonds hears children playing but is confused to see there are none. Edmonds reveals he’s investigating the disappearance of the Bishops, who were assumed to have fled debts, but a window cleaner awakened from a coma revealed his interactions with them on the day of their disappearance. The inspector and Chloe strike up a relationship, and Chloe reveals that the voices Edmonds heard are ghosts she too hears. They become intimate, but it’s short lived. Edmonds is lured upstairs, and has a brief encounter with the remnants of Nathan. The twins reveal they are not members of the Anchorites, but act alone. Norah, to Jonah's disdain, believes they can no longer operate how they have. They begin their ceremony and absorb Edmonds' soul.
In 1997, a group of students belonging to a paranormal club converge upon Slade House, intending to investigate the disappearances of the Bishops and Edmonds. One of the students, Sally Timms, is infatuated with a fellow member. The leader of the group is the nephew of Fred Pink, the window cleaner who saw the Bishops before they disappeared. The group stumble into a previously non-existent Slade House and discover it appears as a student house in the throes of a Halloween party. Sally mingles with the guests of the party before waking to find herself next to a frozen man implied to be Inspector Edmonds, who hands her a weapon, a hairpin with a fox head. Sally is led to the attic via the Grayers mind games. The twins argue once again about their methods, and prepare their ceremony. Sally swears someone will stop them, and then her soul is consumed.
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