<i>The Dead of Winter</i> (review)
2012; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 65; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2012.0043
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Gothic Literature and Media Analysis
ResumoReviewed by: The Dead of Winter Elizabeth Bush Priestley, Chris. The Dead of Winter. Bloomsbury, 2011. [224p]. ISBN 978-1-59990-745-1 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 6–9. Michael Vyner, orphaned by his mother’s recent death, is left to the legal guardianship of Sir Stephen Clarendon, a man whose life Michael’s father once saved. Before [End Page 271] he even arrives at gloomy Hawton Mere, Michael catches his first sight of a flimsily clad, desperate woman begging for help. No one sees her but Michael, but the lawyer Mr. Jerwood and the servant Hodges listen attentively to Michael’s insistent description of the woman, and the boy suspects that there’s a deeper mystery here than adults are willing to discuss. Knocking in the walls, eerie stretches of hallway, and malicious pranks by a ghostly presence regularly plague Michael, and even Sir Stephen is occasionally reduced to cringing terror by sounds and apparitions. It all seems connected to the death of Sir Stephen’s beloved wife, and readers who feast heavily on gothic fare will probably be able to peg the source of evil well before the story’s end. The predictability of the plot, however, does not necessarily undermine the shivery pleasure of perils corporeal and supernatural. Priestley works the gothic horror tropes like a master, upholding the standards of the genre with a richness of language that fans will appreciate. The open ending, calculated to wring out one final shiver, feels a bit forced, but the fiendishly haunted mansion and its tortured occupants set the perfect tone for a bitter winter night’s reading. Copyright © 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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