Review: 'The Hoarder' by Jess Kidd

An ancient, once-grand home? A feisty, resourceful young woman taking on a grumpy, lonely old man? Sarcastic saints? All of those things sound awesome and I wish more books put together this exact combination of random yet brilliant elements. As you can see, The Hoarder seemed right up my alley, promising generational bitterness and dark mystery. And The Hoarder delivered on many levels, if perhaps not on all of them. Thanks to Canongate Books and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 01/02/2018
Publisher: Canongate Books

Maud Drennan - underpaid carer and unintentional psychic - is the latest in a long line of dogsbodies for the ancient, belligerent Cathal Flood. Yet despite her best efforts, Maud is drawn into the mysteries concealed in his filthy, once-grand home. She realises that something is changing: Cathal, and the junk-filled rooms, are opening up to her.

With only her agoraphobic landlady and a troop of sarcastic ghostly saints to help, Maud must uncover what lies beneath Cathal's decades-old hostility, and the strange activities of the house itself. And if someone has hidden a secret there, how far will they go to ensure it remains buried?

The Hoarder beautifully walks the line between a contemporary mystery and a Magical Realism-adjacent fiction book. I had not read anything by Jess Kidd before although I had seen other bloggers raving about her previous work, and after reading The Hoarder I can see why they were so excited. Kidd has that gift that makes something utterly odd seem utterly natural, while something perfectly normal becomes eerily terrifying.Whether it's Cathal Flood's mansion, that goes from imposing to terrifying within seconds, or the saints, who effortlessly go from handing out sarcastic comments to fore-spelling danger, Kidd's The Hoarder will keep you on your feet.

Maud Drennan is a fascinating protagonist. She is a seemingly no-nonsense, straightforward woman who just wants to get the job done, even if that means entering a spooky house haunted by a cantankerous old man. She lives with a delightful if troubled landlady who provides many of the most humorous phrases in the book. But Maud isn't all that she seems. She has her own secrets, buried away so far even the reader doesn't know if they'll ever be uncovered. And then there are the saints that keep appearing, at once helpful and distracting to Maud's mission to declutter Cathal Flood's house and her own mind. Kidd crafts her carefully, never making her too perfect to be relatable, while also dipping into the trope of the unreliable narrator. How much can we trust what Maud is telling us? She is only one person in this tale, after all, and every tale has at least two sides, no? There are some heartbreaking moments in this novel when it comes to family and the history one crafts for oneself. What I mean by that is the tragedy of when we have to face that the life we have crafted for ourselves may not be based on fact, that every family has a closet containing a skeleton or two. The way Kidd allows Maud to confront herself in this novel, gently but determinedly, losing and finding her way as she goes, was fascinating to read.

As I said above, Jess Kidd's writing has a particular magic that makes everything uncanny and beautiful at once. I was gripped by the novel almost immediately, loving the way Kidd crafted her narrative. The Hoarder is filled with absolutely stunning imagery. Whether it's Cathal Flood's mansion, its winding corridors or Maud's childhood memories, Kidd crafts these scenes in delicate and emotive detail until I genuinely felt I could picture them if I closed my eyes. Kidd brings an Irish charm to her novel, largely in Maud's characterization, that made me want to dig deeper into Irish literature as well. One thing that did leave me a little disappointed was that I figured out the "mystery" part of the novel relatively quickly, about a hundred pages before the main character did. Although this didn't lessen my enjoyment of the novel's beauty, it did mean that some parts exploring the mystery dragged a little bit. However, towards the end of the novel there were still a number of twists that made for an exciting finale.

I give this novel...

4 Universes!

I raced through The hoarder at an unbelievable pace. Even though I figured out parts of the plot beforehand, I wanted to know exactly where Kidd was going to take this story. Full of touching and beautiful moments, The Hoarder has made me determined to get my hands on her next book as soon as I can!