JUNE 2018 - AudioFile
Simon Mattacks is a gifted narrator, and he does all an actor can to hold the listener's attention with this patchy ghost story. Maggie, a gifted young artist, escapes to an isolated, abandoned cottage on the Irish coast after a violent relationship comes to an end. The story is told from the point of view of Mike, the art dealer who discovered her and continues to support her. Mattacks narrates so perceptively and tenderly that he brings alive the fretting and bewildered Mike. There are some genuinely eerie moments and some harrowing detail from the Irish famine, but the story doesn't really hang together, and the twist at the end is too contrived. C.A.T. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 03/05/2018
An unspecified something that has just occurred prompts retired artists’ agent Michael Simmons, the English narrator of Irish author O’Callaghan’s chilling, beautifully written first novel, to tell a story he has tried to forget. Flash back nine years to a housewarming party hosted by painter Maggie Turner, a client of Michael’s, who has recently bought and fixed up, with his financial assistance, a rundown cottage on the west coast of Ireland. Maggie has invited Michael and two other friends to visit for several days. One evening at the beach, Michael spots a “flicker of whiteness” that he thinks might be a woman, an image that takes on sinister overtones after he learns of a grim bit of local history. O’Callaghan combines his gift at describing settings (“the casual filthy-white scatter of sheep flecking the distance, the tumbling ground a desperation of greenery, thick as pond-scum in parts”) with subtle suggestions that something unnatural is going on. Fans of psychological thrillers with a ghostly undercurrent will be richly rewarded. Agent: Svetlana Pironko, Author Rights Agency (Ireland). (May)
From the Publisher
Still you keep reading, half-believing that dark forces are stirring, the way you might feel a planchette sliding across a Ouija board. Is it really happening? Or are you convincing yourself there’s more going on here than there really is? Either way, you enjoy the creepy thrill.”—New York Times Book Review
"A solid addition to the treasury of campfire ghost stories. . . . The past in The Dead House is 'thick as tar,' as one character puts it, and its evils are content to bide their time, waiting for unwary visitors."—Wall Street Journal
"A contemporary ghost story that will chill you to your bones."—Bustle
“Chilling, beautifully written . . . Fans of psychological thrillers with a ghostly undercurrent will be richly rewarded.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Billy O’Callaghan’s The Dead House is a perfectly constructed ghost story, an authentically disquieting tale about the old, old cruelty that lives in the land and never dies. It really did scare me.”—Owen King, author of Double Feature: A Novel and coauthor of Sleeping Beauties
“Atmospheric and unsettling, The Dead House takes the traditions of classic ghost stories and builds on them with a contemporary twist. A terrific read.”—John Boyne, award-winning and New York Times–bestselling author
"A subdued chiller . . . There will be more than a few goosebumps raised before the reader finishes this one."—New York Journal of Books
"I know of no other writer on either side of the Atlantic who is better at exploring the human spirit under assault than Billy O'Callaghan."—Robert Olen Butler, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"A moving work that builds to an elegiac climax and is a welcome voice to the pantheon of new Irish writing."—Edna O'Brien
"Billy O’Callaghan’s work is at once subtle and direct, warm and clear-eyed, and never less than beautifully written. He has a moving ability to express the hopes and fears of 'ordinary' people, and he knows intimately the ways of the world. This writer is the real thing." —John Banville
“A tale of evil, of desperation, of things older than time . . . all the qualities of the very best ghost stories.”—Fictionophile
"A superb debut novel . . . O'Callaghan slowly unsettles the reader, line by line, as reality is questioned . . . skilfully conjures up a sense of dread, while at the same time creating a psychological internal terror for his characters."—Evening Echo
"The all-nighter read . . . From the very first chapter, there’s an eerily beautiful stillness to Billy O'Callaghan’s debut. . . An engrossing, striking debut."—Image Magazine
"A skilfull, entertaining piece of work: a traditional ghost story in the best possible sense . . . The Dead House fulfils its formal obligations with subtlety and grace. . . . In particular, Michael's voice . . . affords considerable readerly pleasure. . . . O'Callaghan’s descriptive prose reaches impressive heights."—Sunday Business Post
"The burdens of memory and the effects of isolation certainly run through O’Callaghan’s work to date and The Dead House gives them a space in which the haunting of the past finds its most literal expression: the ghost."—Irish Examiner
"A great tale, well-told . . . O'Callaghan conjures such believable characters that when you close your eyes it’s impossible to believe that they’ve never actually drawn a breath. He delivers a perfect ending to this ghost story ensuring the reader is left haunted, just enough, to have them looking over their shoulder as they climb the stairs to bed."—Susan Condon, writing.ie
"[A] striking debut. . . Billy O'Callaghan casts a fearful gaze into the world of supernatural occurrences."—RTÉ
"The Dead House, with a shiver-inducing final few pages, is a wonderfully mesmerising read, and I loved it."—Liz Robinson,www.lovereading.com
"Fills you with a psychological dread that is hard to shake. . . . Impressive."—writerfulbooks.com
"In a first-person voice unlike any other I’ve come across, O’Callaghan gifts us with a story that unfolds in just the way you’d want to hear it by the fireside . . best not read at night. And yet I’d be hard-pressed to label The Dead Housea ghost story; though it is that, it is more. . . . All praise The Dead House. Do yourself a favor and get ahold of this book."—thewildgeese.irish
"Imaginative . . . O’Callaghan’s descriptive prose brings the Irish countryside vibrantly to life.”—Book Reviews and More by Kathy
“Fans of gothic, psychological thrillers will definitely like this one.”— Jeanea's Book Obsession
JUNE 2018 - AudioFile
Simon Mattacks is a gifted narrator, and he does all an actor can to hold the listener's attention with this patchy ghost story. Maggie, a gifted young artist, escapes to an isolated, abandoned cottage on the Irish coast after a violent relationship comes to an end. The story is told from the point of view of Mike, the art dealer who discovered her and continues to support her. Mattacks narrates so perceptively and tenderly that he brings alive the fretting and bewildered Mike. There are some genuinely eerie moments and some harrowing detail from the Irish famine, but the story doesn't really hang together, and the twist at the end is too contrived. C.A.T. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
