Staff Picks

The Elementals, by Michael McDowell, is an horror novel published in 1981 that I think deserves to be much better known. It straddles the gap between haunted house story and southern gothic, and to my mind succeeds at both, but you should be aware that if your tolerance for southern people with dysfunctional family dynamics is low, it may not be the book for you.

There are two reasons why I think more people should read it. The first is fairly straightforward - it works as a story. The characters, though in some cases quirky bordering on grotesque, grow on you. The haunted house story is one of the best I can call to mind. And for instance, the explanation of the funeral customs of the Savage family and how they came to be the way they are is one of those sequences that I don't think anyone but McDowell could have written as well. The second is that it has interesting ideas about horror and the supernatural. I'm not going to spoil it, but there is a particular conversation that happens halfway through - it involves two characters looking at some photographs and talking about what they do and don't mean, and you'll know it when you get to it. If that conversation and the thread of the book that follows it, wasn't there, I'd regard the novel as a pretty good haunted house story but basically nothing special. But it has some interesting ideas, too. If you've read a lot of horror fiction, one thing that is often in very sparse supply is new and interesting notions about the experience of horror and the supernatural. This book has a few.

Finally, a caveat and an amusing note. Going into it, you should be aware that the book contains a 'Magical Negro' character of the same approximate level of subtlety as you get in earlier Stephen King novels. It isn't hateful - if you can get through The Shining, this should pose little difficulty, and the character in question is well written in some other respects. But be prepared to roll your eyes on occasion, and if something like that is a dealbreaker for you, it might be best to give this one a pass.

In terms of the historical note, it might be worth being aware that McDowell would later write the original draft of the screenplay to Beetlejuice. Fans of the movie might find the cynical camera-toting displaced New Yorker India McCray to be just a little bit familiar.