 How might a love letter to the Gothic genre look? It might, first, be in the novel form, nothing less would capture its grandiose themes, its dark and brooding atmosphere. Then there must be a house, not just any old house will do. You know the type, a tangle of rust-covered metal gates and fence, and behind them a jagged, dark marvel of Gothic revival architecture. I quote, like vast animal from its den, a gabled spine, wings of pale stone, a tower with a single amber eye, steep steps curl like a tail around its feet. Close quotes. Harrow. Page 18. In within this house, the tortured and self-denying ways of the novels, and genres, protagonists, your heat cliffs and elizabeths and frankensteins and their creatures, driven, tragic heroes, most often driven towards their own destruction. Judge Alexey Harrow's latest novel by these measures, and you will find Starling House a laudable work, a Gothic novel well worth reading. It's Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights that the book gives homage to, in ways explicit and implicit. A few examples of the latter. Starling House feels as remote from the town of Eden, Kentucky, as the Wuthering Heights. Manor House felt from what have a nameless fictional town Bronte decided to situate her novel near, both places eerie, and the sources of curiosity and fright alike. I.e. they give off creepy vibes. There's a naming convention. Both novels carry the names of their central locales, of course. Gothic protagonists are not the pretty boys of teen vampire fiction either. Heat Cliff was never a looker. And Arthur is described by one supporting character as a big scarecrow. Page 223. As for explicit references, main character, Opal, enjoys her Gothic reeds. Arthur, the male lead of Starling House, eventually ends up under the moniker Heat Cliff on her phone. There are other elements that you'll inevitably find. I read Wuthering Heights two years ago and it's not the freshest novel in my mind, so I'm certain I overlooked a fair few callbacks. It's important to know that, while Harrow's Gothic novel shows nothing but love to Bronte's genre-defying work, Starling House is not smupped onto it. Francine prose, defined for the New York Review of Books in 2012, some of Wuthering Heights' strongest suits, namely, I cite, its wild originality, its immensely intricate narrative structure, its hyper-romanticism masquerading as naturalism, the dialogue that makes its characters seem always to be shouting, even when they are conversing. These traits are not the traits you'll find in Harrow's novel, its structure isn't going to startle you with its originality, the fantasy Gothic is not reinvented in some miraculous way. Nor need it be. This isn't only a love letter to the Gothic genre, it's also an Alexey-Harrow novel, if you've read The Ten Thousand Doors of January, or The Ones in Future Witches, I have, you know exactly what that means, if not, I'll tell you. A deep and abiding interest in the power of stories, in their plurality, in the polyphony of different versions of a central story or motif, is felt here. Here this polyphony relates to the various stories told about Starling House's origins, horror stories and tales of emancipation. Opal's writers only half way, but still lingering all the way to the present. Some don't like the switch between first and third person points of view. I love this particular choice, I love it here and I love it in general. Opal's perspective takes prime place, she is a thief and a liar, forced into both roles for the sake not only of herself, but of her younger brother Jasper. Eden has taken her mother, has denied her opportunities, freely given to those in the town who have more normal lives, families, support networks, all things that Opal is lacking. Opal is a bit of an idiot to begin with as well, which makes her growth so much more satisfying. I don't mean here the annoying insufferable kind of character that you won't be able to stand, rather Opal's a bit of an idiot like anyone who's ever lived is a bit of an idiot, she takes too much on her shoulders, tries to hold together the weight of two lives, her own and Jasper's, without asking for help or discussing her plans for the future with anyone else. She's willful, driven, doing the best she can in an incredibly difficult situation. Her reactions to the uncanny circumstances she finds herself in are relatable and she has a rhinos and a wittiness about her that make her point of view sections a joy to read. This citation for example from a conversation with the co-worker early on in the book. Lacy's mouth bends in a glossy bow. That's not funny, my Mimo says there were two starlings living there back in her day, a pair of women. The voice lowers, bowing beneath the weight of implication. Neither of them ever married. I would like to ask Lacy's Mimo if she'd considered the quality of potential husbands available in Malinburg County, but I suppose given the existence of Lacy that she must have made certain compromises, close quotes. And I don't know about you but as far as I'm concerned, this hits just the right spot of rye comedy. How about our second protagonist? Arthur is the warden of Starling House, fighting shadows and beasts of uncertain origins. He appears as brooding and melancholy as heatcliff. Despite potential appearances, he and Opal have an awful lot in common. Both characters are driven by goals they will not be dissuaded from, and both characters go through narrative arcs that force them to come to grips with the limits of what they can achieve alone. Opal's purpose is to make sure that Jasper doesn't end up stuck in Eden. Arthur's is that he will be the last warden of the house. How their paths cross, and how well they succeed at these goals. I'll leave to the reader to find out. What if Eden Kentucky itself? A tried and tested irony of naming a location, Eden, and proceeding to make it anything but is always appreciated. Its story is profoundly contemporary American. Another township with the once glamorous history exploited to the brink, its citizens now the victims of precarious and constant economic risk. As unreal as Gothic as Starling House itself is, Eden is tangible. Just another locale in the USA's Rust Belt, decimated by the industrialization and the running out of coal. Its people hate the local corporation that has brought them to this ruin, gravely power, and need the jobs and businesses it keeps on life support if they are to avoid worse ruin yet. And this too strikes me as something characteristic for Alex Harrow's work. This timely reflects issues in the world beyond its covers with awareness and sympathy. The members of her supporting cast reveal themselves as more than stock characters. Bev, the grouchy motwell keeper who lets Opal and Jasper live in room 12 rent free is more than the tobacco chewing curmudgeon that Opal initially introduces her as. Opal herself in the daily drudgery for survival has forgotten some of that. She has forgotten that people go beyond the stock characters that they appear to be. The novel allows her and the reader to see people anew, to create new connections to revisit and re-conceptualize old ones. That's not to say that some of the people Opal has known all her life are not the scumbags she knows them to be, no not at all, far beard for me to take that away from her. But allow me a final return to the most emblematic gothic element of this fantasy novel. Starling house is alive, it contains multitudes within itself, dreams, feelings, nostalgic memories and mysteries most of all. These mysteries go deep and range far in time and space. The untangling of them by Opal is the novel's greatest joy. The house is a storied space in so many ways, as significant as Opal and Arter are, its constant presence overshadows even the two of them. It certainly overwhelms. I quote, the surface is scarred and stained. It's only up close that I see their tiny shapes carved roughly into the wood, hundreds of them, horse shoes and crooked crosses and open eyes, spirals and circles and malformed hands that run in long rows like hieroglyphs or lines of code. Some of them I almost recognize from mom's tarot decks and astrology charts, but most of them are unfamiliar, like letters from an alphabet I don't know. There's a derangement to them, a desperation that tells me I should leave before I wind up ritually beheaded or sacrificed on a stone altar in the basement. Hell of a First Impression house. And it only gets better from there with the complex relationship that Starling House develops with Opal, with the even more complex emotions between it and Arter, with every sad creek and joyous flap of a curtain. Explore this space at your own pace. But do give it the time of day, especially if the Gothic genre speaks to you. You'll enjoy Starling House by Alexi Harrow if you read and enjoy Gothic literature. Did watering heights twist up your silly little hearts in romantic expectations? Good news, the heart-twisting fun continues here. Perhaps you loved Harrow's previous work, the accent on stories and their power continues to be an ever-present pole in her writing, and, folks, it is a delight. You have a thing for scarecrow boys and crooked girls in contentious, fun relationships. Just think of the shipping potential. Not least, of course, is the fact that this is a spooky house! And plenty more, probably. One last note on the materiality of the book itself. Torse-Printed International Edition is a good example of a...finally printed book, a paperback worth owning and treasuring. The paper is pleasant to the touch, and the font size makes for a more economical layout, while still immensely legible. If this were Golan's publication, it might have easily been 150 pages longer. This edition closes at 308 pages. As someone without any space for books at this point, I appreciate these particular aspects of the paperback. They do make a difference. Let me know. How do you feel about Gothic novels? Have you read watering heights? How about, say, Gothic vampire fiction? I've read a few of those, might have a good occasion to speak about an excellent, recent example of such a novel. And of course, have you read anything by Harrow? Are you going to pick up Starling House? You should. It's well worth giving it a chance. If you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to smash that like button, send the video to anyone who might enjoy this novel or the video itself. And I hope to see you again next time. Till then, I'm Ferdinand Magnes, you're not, and bye!