Review: 'The Family Plot' by Cherie Priest

If you work at salvaging the remains of old houses, you're bound to run into some weird things, from left-behind photo albums to perhaps ... a ghost? Dahlia is an old hand at this, but when she gets to the old Withrow estate, she encounters a whole new challenge. Thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My sincerest apologies for the very delayed review, I have no idea why it took me almost a decade to get to it! 

Pub. Date: 20/09/2016
Publisher: Macmillan-Tor/Forge

Chuck Dutton built Music City Salvage with patience and expertise, stripping historic properties and reselling their bones. Inventory is running low, so he's thrilled when Augusta Withrow appears in his office offering salvage rights to her entire property. This could be a gold mine, so he assigns his daughter Dahlia to personally oversee the project.

The crew finds a handful of surprises right away. Firstly, the place is in unexpectedly good shape. And then there's the cemetery, about thirty fallen and overgrown graves dating to the early 1900s, Augusta insists that the cemetery is just a fake, a Halloween prank, so the city gives the go-ahead, the bulldozer revs up, and it turns up human remains. Augusta says she doesn't know whose body it is or how many others might be present and refuses to answer any more questions. Then she stops answering the phone.

But Dahlia's concerns about the corpse and Augusta's disappearance are overshadowed when she begins to realize that she and her crew are not alone, and they're not welcome at the Withrow estate. They have no idea how much danger they're in, but they're starting to get an idea. On the crew's third night in the house, a storm shuts down the only road to the property. The power goes out. Cell signals are iffy. There's nowhere to go and no one Dahlia can call for help, even if anyone would believe that she and her crew are being stalked by a murderous phantom. Something at the Withrow mansion is angry and lost, and this is its last chance to raise hell before the house is gone forever. And it seems to be seeking permanent company.

The Family Plot is a haunted house story for the ages-atmospheric, scary, and strange, with a modern gothic sensibility to keep it fresh and interesting-from Cherie Priest, a modern master of supernatural fiction.

I don't think ghosts are real. I have visited plenty of old buildings, cemeteries, and places where horrible crimes took place, like concentration camps, and never seen one. But in each of these places I felt the history that lingered there, the weight of past events that hung thick in the air. I remember walking through Auschwitz and not hearing a single bird nor feeling the warmth of the sun. So, although I've never seen a ghost, I do not think that the past is ever dead and gone. Things are left behind and if you let yourself be open to it, you will feel it. Because of this belief on my part, I really liked that Cherrie Priest did not waste time having her characters battle their own disbelief. Don't get me wrong, they're not ghost hunters, but they are all people who work in old houses, elbows-deep in the past, and so they have had their own fair share of feeling the past press down on them. Having this openness from the beginning means that you can dive straight into the Gothic feeling of ghostly oppression and mystery. The Gothic is the ideal genre, really, to explore trauma and while I didn't necessarily love every aspect of how Priest worked this out, I did overall enjoy it. 

Chuck Dutton, knowing full well it might mean the end of his family salvage business, signs up for a massive job: stripping the dying Withrow estate of all its value. He puts together a crew, led by his daughter Dahlia, and hopes that this will be the making of his company, rather than its end. Dahlia, meanwhile, is in her thirties and fresh of a miserable divorce which saw her lose her own beloved old house. She promises the Withrow house she'll be kind while stripping it but, sadly, the history and ghosts of the estate promise no such thing in return. A job which started out stressful becomes dangerous overnight and the incoming storms are not going to help. While The Family Plot has something of an ensemble cast, the focus truly is on Dahlia. I really liked that she cared deeply for the houses she strips, even if it is perhaps a little trite to wander around and apologise to inanimate wood and stone. Not all of it works equally well. Her bickering with the other crewmembers is a little repetitive at times, for example, and I wasn't entirely sure what to do with the use of autism in the book. The latter felt very underbaked, even for 2016. However, Dahlia's openness to the house and its history creates this delightful Southern Gothic atmosphere, where her rage merges with that of the unquiet spirits of the house. The last quarter or so of the book is also very nicely paced, building up some lovely tension and drama.

This was my first book by Cherie Priest and I really liked the atmosphere she created and the beautiful descriptions of the estate itself. It really felt like I could see the house and the estate, its overgrown gardens, its beautiful marble, its fugly pink bathroom, its wood. It's clear that Priest did her research on how a salvage team might approach a job like this and the technicalities of the work kind of ground the paranormal aspect of the plot. As I mentioned above, not everything about the plot and setting works well, and the biggest issue I had with it was that the backstory of the main ghost at the house remains a little vague. Some of that vagueness works, allowing the reader to make up their own mind a little, but the book goes back-and-forth quite a bit on whether she was a woman wronged or actually just evil and crazy. I wish Priest had picked one side of that fence and stuck to it, as I think it would have allowed for a clearer idea of the house's history. This is also true for another presence in the house who hovers between being a helper and a problem. I would have loved to know more about her, but she kind of disappeared from the narrative at some point. Despite all of this, however, I did have a very good time with The Family Plot. I loved the details of the house and the tension Priest built and would definitely recommend it for those who enjoy their horror with a side of antiquing!

I give this novel...

4 Universes!

I did very much enjoy The Family Plot despite it occasionally feeling a little rough around the edges. It was very atmospheric and I spent a delightful weekend reading it!