Review: Haunt Sweet Home, by Sarah Pinsker

Review: Haunt Sweet Home, by Sarah Pinsker

by Rich Horton

Sarah Pinsker's latest book is this short novel/novella from Tordotcom. (My quick and dirty word count -- certainly vulnerable to errors -- indicates that it's between 40,000 and 45,000 words, which actually makes it eligible for the Hugos in either the novel or novella category -- I'll put in novella myself for my nominating ballot purposes.)

The story is told in first person by Mara Billings, the youngest of her generation in a large extended family, and it's quickly clear that she a) hasn't done much with her life so far (she's about 30, still working barista-type jobs after a few half-hearted stabs at community college), and b) is pretty sensitive about how her family seems to regard her. The best known members of the family are her cousin Jeremy, who is a successful model and has a gig as the host of a cable show about remodeling haunted houses called Haunt Sweet Home; and her Oma, who was a quite successful wood sculptor until her hands gave out. Jeremy offers her a job as a Production Assistant on his show, and after some hesitation she takes him up on it. (The particular season the story covers involves houses in Western Massachusetts, an area I'm mildly familiar with as my Dad was born and raised there.)

She learns she's assigned to the night shift, which is charged with prepping things for the actual shoots, which are in the day. And part of that prepping is arranging for the "haunts", which to no real surprise are faked. The work is strenuous, and it messes with her sleep schedule, but she finds she enjoys it, even if she's still not sure she's accepted by her fellows. There's one house worked on per week, and we see a couple of these. She ends up with a tree branch salvaged from a "haunted" woods, that she starts carving in imitation of her Oma. And a couple of houses in she meets a day shift person, Jo, who has volunteered to help with the haunting, and who seems very good at it. (And a reader's antennae should perk immediately!) Jo and Mara become close enough friends that Mara invites Jo to a family get-together during some off-time -- and then Mara becomes annoyed again that Jo is -- to Mara's eyes -- immediately welcomed by her family in a way Mara doesn't feel about herself.

Then we come to Cleaveland House, which has a haunted library -- or which will once they get done with it! This episode is described in script snippets shown between the chapters, and it involves books flying around the library at night. This is Mara's job, of course -- but then somehow books that Mara was nowhere near also go flying ...

Well, I won't tell the rest, though it won't come as much of a surprise, and at any rate it's not really the point of the story. The point of the story is Mara beginning to figure out what she needs to do with her life -- and the particular help she gets in that effort. This is nicely handled and believable. The story does have a supernatural element, though a slightish one, and that works nicely too. I don't rank this with Pinsker's very best work, but it's a fine and effective story, and a good example of using supernatural elements without cheating or diminishing them -- but also to fundamentally tell a pure character story.