If A Good House for Children doesn’t sell well, I’ll eat my haunted hat. Not only does it scream imminent Netflix deal, but the book itself should fly off the shelves. This, because it’ll go down a treat for all of those (numerous) readers with tastes straddling what passes for “literary fiction” and good old, deeply satisfying horror. It has a little bit of all things not very nice that make up a page-turning popular novel, without resorting to moral simplicity or predictability. It’s a highly readable book that still inspires more questions than it answers – which is impressive, for being so rare.
Set in a haunted house on the Dorset coast, we’re presented with a dual narrative of two women and the children in their care, trying to get to grips with their new, supposedly idyllic yet unnerving surroundings. Mirroring the women’s loosening grip on their reality is our increasing uncertainty as to what’s really happening. More than once I was put in mind of The Turn of the Screw. While I’m not going so far as to compare the two, Henry James’s classic at least gives an idea of the reading experience.
In Collins’s novel, we’re also offered many interesting touchstones, making the book intelligent, rather than unadulterated fodder. These include ideas around middle-class feminism, concordant arsehole or absent men (anyone who comes away not wanting to annihilate the gaslighting-prone character of Nick has obviously had the good fortune of never meeting one of his many doubles), family values, art-making, mental health and the effects of isolation. These are accompanied by accomplished descriptions of architecture, the sea, the seasons, flora.
Oh yes, and then there’s the genuinely creepy house, filled with sightings, noises, unlocking locked doors, marbles flying about the stairs and numerous near misses involving adorable children. Oh, God, and the nails. As someone with a phobia of bleeding or broken fingernails, some sentences had me visibly flinching. This visceral quality points to Collins’s real skill as a writer. She evokes her characters and scenes deftly. Not only that, but the whole thrust and purpose of the book add up so well, issues are handled with such lightness of touch, that this reads like a novelist in her prime, rather than a beginner.
