Novella Review: The Cottage in Omena, by Charles Andrew Oberndorf

Novella Review: The Cottage in Omena, by Charles Andrew Oberndorf

a review by Rich Horton

Charles Oberndorf's new novella (from the September/October 2022 F&SF) reads like a pandemic story -- well, it is a pandemic story, though I can't say whether it was directly inspired by COVID. (The central disease actually resembles the cordyceps from The Last of Us a bit more than COVID, but I'm sure the series isn't the source -- though perhaps Charlie's son Andrew, who came up with the idea (hence the byline nod) played the videogame.) But focusing on the terrible disease driving the plot might have us miss the beautifully handled character revelations that truly center the story.

As the story opens, Claire is heading to Grand Traverse Bay to see about selling her parents' vacation cottage. She had resisted for some time, despite her older sister's advice, and it takes a while before we learn what's up with that. But mentions of vaccinations and spraying for water fungus and hints of something terrible that happened to Claire mount ...

Well, I'll cut to the chase a bit: some five years prior, a fungus began infecting people with a compulsion to go to water, where usually they would drown -- and sometimes come back. Now there's vaccination and some treatments but the threat is by no means gone. And places by water are the most dangerous, as Claire knows only too well ... and its soon clear that her husband was one of the victims. 

The story alternates between the present day -- a reunion of sorts with another woman she knew from summers at the Bay -- not exactly a friend but, well, someone she knew, and a meeting with the real estate agent, and so on; plus flashbacks to five years before, as the mysterious plague spreads. We learn a bit about Claire's marriage, which seems pretty happy, and about Claire's memories of the Bay, and the times she had there. But there's something darker to be revealed, something truly wrenching, and a somewhat shocking event in the present. 

I won't say anything more about the story -- it's best to let the revelations come as part of reading. The story is beautifully written, and there's a quietude contrasted with horror that truly works. It's powerful, sad, scary: the blurb suggested Alice Munro crossed with Stephen King, and that seems fair -- and the Munro side dominates (a good thing: she's a truly great writer.) Certainly a novella worth a look at Hugo time!