The Birthing House
By: Christopher Ransom
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1 edition (August 4, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312385846
ISBN-13: 978-0312385842
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.3 inches
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you a lover of ghost stories and haunted houses? If so, then The Birthing House just may be an excellent choice for you. A debut novel by Christopher Ranson, this book combines the paranormal with deep unmet desire.
Have you ever just happened to look through a newspaper, magazine or seen an ad of some variety, where something just jumped out and grabbed you? Almost as if you are being spoken to and unexplainably drawn to something or someone. This is the feeling that Conrad Harrison gets while looking through the Wisconsin State Journal, while far from home and trying to deal with emotional issues after the loss of his estranged father. The ad reads:
Conrad’s marriage has been on the rocks and his dissatisfaction with living in California is at an all-time high. This move, to this place, feels right and as though it will be a new beginning for both him and his wife. Little does Conrad know that the house is alive with a dark presence, searching for a life that is brought about by birth and death. There is only one mother, and that mother must get rid of all the “other mothers”.
With virgin pregnancies, extreme fertility, erotic dreams (or are they just dreams?) and unexplainable visions and sounds, including the wailing of a newborn infant, The Birthing House is sure to take hold of the reader from the beginning.
Ransom displays an excellent talent for both storytelling and writing. A fact that I found particularly interesting is that both he and his wife live in a 140-year-old birthing house in Wisconsin. Hmmm, perhaps there is more to The Birthing House than just imagination?
After hearing bits and pieces, here and there, about The Birthing House, I was greatly intrigued and had a deep desire to read this book. Settling in, I was quickly engrossed. However, I do have to be honest in saying that there was a point where I lost interest because of the excessive sexual content.
I am not a prude, by any means, but it just seemed as though there was an overt amount of sex scenes, that took away from the story. I can understand the sexual possession aspect of the storyline, however it just seemed a bit overdone to me. After getting through this lengthy portion, the latter half of The Birthing House, once again, took over my senses and wrapped itself around me. I was left feeling fairly satisfied, as the final page was turned and the cover closed.
As horror/paranormal/haunting stories go, The Birthing House was good. I never found myself to be scared per say, however it frankly takes quite a bit to scare me with a story. That’s not to say that I didn’t find the haunting/paranormal aspect to be engrossing, just not overly “scary”. Those easily “freaked out”, however, may have a totally different take on this. I did love the premise of the story and the writing was excellent. One particular passage that really stuck out for me was (from page 245):
*As an overall rating, I would give The Birthing House a 3/5.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About The Birthing House:
The house was like another woman in that way. Looking was just looking, and there was no harm in looking unless looking turned to touching. Or buying...
Every haunted house tells the story of someone’s death. But what about the house where life has not ended, but only began? If death can be a traumatic event that opens doors to evil, what about that other traumatic event? The one that does not usher life out of this world, but into it?
When thirty-somethings Conrad and Joanna Harrison choose to start a new life in a former turn-of-the-century birthing house in a small Wisconsin town, their marriage is healing but fragile, vulnerable to private yearnings and darker histories. They have no idea the secrets they are keeping from one another will induce a series of hauntings.
An infant wailing from the depths at night. Carpet tearing open to reveal floors stained by an ancient blood lust. A darkly clad woman who visits Conrad with increasingly bold demands...and who bears a striking resemblance to his wife.
For no sooner are Conrad and Jo learning to make amends than Jo is called away to train out of state for a new job. But earning their daily bread is not her chief concern. Since moving into their new home, Jo has sensed unsettling changes in her husband, and she’s carrying a secret of her own. One that’s due to arrive in about nine months.
Listen to the woman of the house. Be a man and do the right thing, but listen to the woman of the house...
Alone in the house for six weeks, assailed by visions he cannot comprehend, Conrad becomes obsessed with the girl next door, Nadia Grum, a pregnant teen who claims to be a victim of the evil living under his roof. As Conrad and Nadia begin to spend one hot summer night after another in the birthing house, revealing their secrets, they unlock a common need to begin again.
But is it an affair of the heart, or something more sinister? Is Nadia just another confused and frightened woman running from her abusive ex-boyfriend, or is something in the house calling her back every time she tries to run away?
He wanted to be faithful, to find something deserving of faith, even if it cost him his marriage. Maybe this house would offer such an article. And maybe this thing inside him, driving him, was but a quaint strain of madness. But wasn’t love like that? An excuse to go mad, just for a little while?
Torn between two expecting women, Conrad must confront his own dark history and paternal fears before the house gives birth to a new monster and destroys his last chance to make a family.
With echoes of The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby, The Birthing House is a tale of one man’s descent into madness and an unflinching exploration of the everyday domestic horrors of dual-career marriage, infidelity, imminent parenthood, and the darkest recesses of human desire, where dreams and nightmares share the same marital bed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
They were in the house a week before it came for him.
Joanna Harrison was dozing on the couch in the TV room while her
husband stood on the deck, breathing through a sweet clove cigarette that burned
his throat and floated a candy cloud above his empty thoughts. The cigarette was
the kind found on the back covers of men’s magazines, the smoke of wannabes.
What Conrad wanted to be this night was content, and, for a few more minutes of
this vanishing sunset hour, he was.
Content equally with himself and his lot: a full acre of sloping lawn,
century-old maple and black walnut trees, and a garden as large as a swimming
pool, its aged gray gate roped with grape vines. Raspberry and clover grew thick
in the shade of the shaggy pines still moist with the day’s sweet rain.
He heard running water and looked through the window into the kitchen.
Her blurry, sleepy-slouched shape hovered for a moment, probably filling a glass
to take to bed. He waved to her. She either did not see him or was too tired to
wave back. She turned away and faded back into the house.
He wanted to follow her, but he waited. Let her brush and floss, finish
with a shot of the orange Listerine before she turned back the freshly laundered
Egyptian cotton. You can’t rush these things. These are delicate times. Eyes
closed, he could almost see her stretched out in one of her tanktinis and cotton
boy-cut underwear, a big girl-woman reading another marketing book he always
said were made for people on planes. She must be happy here. Otherwise, she
would be cleaning and planning and avoiding bedtime.
Summer had arrived early. The house was muggy. He wondered if she
would be warm enough to go without covers, but cool enough to allow his touch.
He had been shocked to discover that he wanted her more now. He was
still madder than hell about the entire stupid scene with That Fucker Jake and all
its implications, its mysteries. But he knew the balance of things and how he’d
not been holding up his share of them was half the problem. Maybe more than
half. She’d almost slipped away. Even before that nasty little homecoming it had
been months, and since the fresh start (that was how he thought of it, but never
named it as such, not aloud) he’d been watching for signs. If Luther and Alice
were in their crates, that was one sign. If she had showered that was yet another,
though never a binding one. None of the signs were binding, which added
suspense to the marriage and kept his hopes in a perpetual swing from boyish
curiosity on one side to blood-stewing resentment on the other.
He walked up the deck steps to the wooden walkway, into the mudroom.
He climbed stairs (the servants’ stairs off the kitchen, not the front stairs with the black maple banister, which for some reason he had been avoiding since the move) and felt the weight of the day in his bones.
By the time he finished brushing his teeth he was tired the way only people
who have unpacked ninety percent of their possessions in a single day can be
tired. His mind was empty, his muscles what his mom said his father used to call
labor-fucked, the old man’s way of suggesting that work is its own reward.
I’m sorry, Dad-
(click here) to continue reading...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About Christopher Ransom:
Christopher Ransom was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, but he doesn’t eat hamburgers made of vegetables or drive an SUV with a Save the Planet bumper sticker.
After studying literature at Colorado State University, he won citations for outstanding customer service at the world famous McGuckin Hardware, and later managed Bushmaster Reptiles, an international wholesale importer of exotic species. There he learned to handle, feed, and medicate pythons, boas, vipers, cobras, monitor lizards, and hundreds of other fauna native to Indonesia, Africa, China, and the Americas.
At the age of 25, Chris and his soon-to-be wife Pia moved to New York City for two years, where he worked as an ad sales assistant at Entertainment Weekly, and later as a sales executive for Screaming Media. Approximately six months prior to the firm going public, he made the brilliant financial decision to move to Los Angeles to pursue a screenwriting career. There he sold not a single screenplay, but continued to ride the dot-com wave, managed a Barnes & Noble store, freelanced as a copywriter, and ate a lot of tacos at Baja Fresh.
In 2004, with their three rescued pound mutts—Cowboy, Nacho, and Tater-Tot—in tow, Chris and his wife relocated to a 140-year-old former birthing house in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Working as a copywriter for Famous Footwear in Madison, Chris spent the next three years conceiving and delivering his first novel, The Birthing House, which was recently published by the Sphere imprint of Little, Brown, in the UK, and will be released by St. Martin's Press in the US on August 4, 2009.
On January 25th, The Birthing House landed at #6 on the London Times list of fiction paperback best-sellers.
Among his heroes and influences, Christopher Ransom counts authors of genre-bending dark literature such as Dan Simmons, Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Jack Ketchum, as well as masters of urban and suburban noir such as Peter Blauner, Colin Harrison, Tom Perrotta, James Salter, and Pete Dexter.
He has a 7-foot long olive python from New Guinea, named Olivia. Olivia resides in a large terrarium in front of the author's desk, and can often be seen sunning herself or yawning in anticipation of her bi-weekly meal.
Chris is currently working full-time on his second novel.
Be sure to check out Christopher Ransom's awesome website:
http://www.ransomesque.com/index.html
By: Christopher Ransom
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1 edition (August 4, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312385846
ISBN-13: 978-0312385842
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.3 inches
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are you a lover of ghost stories and haunted houses? If so, then The Birthing House just may be an excellent choice for you. A debut novel by Christopher Ranson, this book combines the paranormal with deep unmet desire.
Have you ever just happened to look through a newspaper, magazine or seen an ad of some variety, where something just jumped out and grabbed you? Almost as if you are being spoken to and unexplainably drawn to something or someone. This is the feeling that Conrad Harrison gets while looking through the Wisconsin State Journal, while far from home and trying to deal with emotional issues after the loss of his estranged father. The ad reads:
“140-yr-old Victorian in Black Earth. 4bdr., 2 bath on 1 acre. 3,500 sq. feet. Front parlor, library, orig. woodwork, maple floors, fireplace. Cornish stone foundation. Det. 2-car garage. Historic turn-of-the-century birthing house restored to mint. Perfect for family! $225,000. Seller motivated. Call Roddy at (608) 574-8911”
Conrad’s marriage has been on the rocks and his dissatisfaction with living in California is at an all-time high. This move, to this place, feels right and as though it will be a new beginning for both him and his wife. Little does Conrad know that the house is alive with a dark presence, searching for a life that is brought about by birth and death. There is only one mother, and that mother must get rid of all the “other mothers”.
With virgin pregnancies, extreme fertility, erotic dreams (or are they just dreams?) and unexplainable visions and sounds, including the wailing of a newborn infant, The Birthing House is sure to take hold of the reader from the beginning.
Ransom displays an excellent talent for both storytelling and writing. A fact that I found particularly interesting is that both he and his wife live in a 140-year-old birthing house in Wisconsin. Hmmm, perhaps there is more to The Birthing House than just imagination?
After hearing bits and pieces, here and there, about The Birthing House, I was greatly intrigued and had a deep desire to read this book. Settling in, I was quickly engrossed. However, I do have to be honest in saying that there was a point where I lost interest because of the excessive sexual content.
I am not a prude, by any means, but it just seemed as though there was an overt amount of sex scenes, that took away from the story. I can understand the sexual possession aspect of the storyline, however it just seemed a bit overdone to me. After getting through this lengthy portion, the latter half of The Birthing House, once again, took over my senses and wrapped itself around me. I was left feeling fairly satisfied, as the final page was turned and the cover closed.
As horror/paranormal/haunting stories go, The Birthing House was good. I never found myself to be scared per say, however it frankly takes quite a bit to scare me with a story. That’s not to say that I didn’t find the haunting/paranormal aspect to be engrossing, just not overly “scary”. Those easily “freaked out”, however, may have a totally different take on this. I did love the premise of the story and the writing was excellent. One particular passage that really stuck out for me was (from page 245):
“I got news for you, kid,” Leon Laski had said. “A haunting is just history roused from her sleep. Any house can be haunted, even a new one. Know why? Because what makes’em haunted ain’t just in the walls and the floors and the dark rooms at night. It’s in us. All the pity and rage and sadness and hot blood we carry around. The house might be where it lives, but the human heart is the key. We run the risk of letting the fair maiden out for one more dance every time we hang our hat.”On sale August 4th, 2009, The Birthing House is sure to make it’s way to many a reader’s hands. I greatly look forward to Christopher Ransom’s next work, as I am sure many other’s will be.
*As an overall rating, I would give The Birthing House a 3/5.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About The Birthing House:
The house was like another woman in that way. Looking was just looking, and there was no harm in looking unless looking turned to touching. Or buying...
Every haunted house tells the story of someone’s death. But what about the house where life has not ended, but only began? If death can be a traumatic event that opens doors to evil, what about that other traumatic event? The one that does not usher life out of this world, but into it?
When thirty-somethings Conrad and Joanna Harrison choose to start a new life in a former turn-of-the-century birthing house in a small Wisconsin town, their marriage is healing but fragile, vulnerable to private yearnings and darker histories. They have no idea the secrets they are keeping from one another will induce a series of hauntings.
An infant wailing from the depths at night. Carpet tearing open to reveal floors stained by an ancient blood lust. A darkly clad woman who visits Conrad with increasingly bold demands...and who bears a striking resemblance to his wife.
For no sooner are Conrad and Jo learning to make amends than Jo is called away to train out of state for a new job. But earning their daily bread is not her chief concern. Since moving into their new home, Jo has sensed unsettling changes in her husband, and she’s carrying a secret of her own. One that’s due to arrive in about nine months.
Listen to the woman of the house. Be a man and do the right thing, but listen to the woman of the house...
Alone in the house for six weeks, assailed by visions he cannot comprehend, Conrad becomes obsessed with the girl next door, Nadia Grum, a pregnant teen who claims to be a victim of the evil living under his roof. As Conrad and Nadia begin to spend one hot summer night after another in the birthing house, revealing their secrets, they unlock a common need to begin again.
But is it an affair of the heart, or something more sinister? Is Nadia just another confused and frightened woman running from her abusive ex-boyfriend, or is something in the house calling her back every time she tries to run away?
He wanted to be faithful, to find something deserving of faith, even if it cost him his marriage. Maybe this house would offer such an article. And maybe this thing inside him, driving him, was but a quaint strain of madness. But wasn’t love like that? An excuse to go mad, just for a little while?
Torn between two expecting women, Conrad must confront his own dark history and paternal fears before the house gives birth to a new monster and destroys his last chance to make a family.
With echoes of The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby, The Birthing House is a tale of one man’s descent into madness and an unflinching exploration of the everyday domestic horrors of dual-career marriage, infidelity, imminent parenthood, and the darkest recesses of human desire, where dreams and nightmares share the same marital bed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
They were in the house a week before it came for him.
Joanna Harrison was dozing on the couch in the TV room while her
husband stood on the deck, breathing through a sweet clove cigarette that burned
his throat and floated a candy cloud above his empty thoughts. The cigarette was
the kind found on the back covers of men’s magazines, the smoke of wannabes.
What Conrad wanted to be this night was content, and, for a few more minutes of
this vanishing sunset hour, he was.
Content equally with himself and his lot: a full acre of sloping lawn,
century-old maple and black walnut trees, and a garden as large as a swimming
pool, its aged gray gate roped with grape vines. Raspberry and clover grew thick
in the shade of the shaggy pines still moist with the day’s sweet rain.
He heard running water and looked through the window into the kitchen.
Her blurry, sleepy-slouched shape hovered for a moment, probably filling a glass
to take to bed. He waved to her. She either did not see him or was too tired to
wave back. She turned away and faded back into the house.
He wanted to follow her, but he waited. Let her brush and floss, finish
with a shot of the orange Listerine before she turned back the freshly laundered
Egyptian cotton. You can’t rush these things. These are delicate times. Eyes
closed, he could almost see her stretched out in one of her tanktinis and cotton
boy-cut underwear, a big girl-woman reading another marketing book he always
said were made for people on planes. She must be happy here. Otherwise, she
would be cleaning and planning and avoiding bedtime.
Summer had arrived early. The house was muggy. He wondered if she
would be warm enough to go without covers, but cool enough to allow his touch.
He had been shocked to discover that he wanted her more now. He was
still madder than hell about the entire stupid scene with That Fucker Jake and all
its implications, its mysteries. But he knew the balance of things and how he’d
not been holding up his share of them was half the problem. Maybe more than
half. She’d almost slipped away. Even before that nasty little homecoming it had
been months, and since the fresh start (that was how he thought of it, but never
named it as such, not aloud) he’d been watching for signs. If Luther and Alice
were in their crates, that was one sign. If she had showered that was yet another,
though never a binding one. None of the signs were binding, which added
suspense to the marriage and kept his hopes in a perpetual swing from boyish
curiosity on one side to blood-stewing resentment on the other.
He walked up the deck steps to the wooden walkway, into the mudroom.
He climbed stairs (the servants’ stairs off the kitchen, not the front stairs with the black maple banister, which for some reason he had been avoiding since the move) and felt the weight of the day in his bones.
By the time he finished brushing his teeth he was tired the way only people
who have unpacked ninety percent of their possessions in a single day can be
tired. His mind was empty, his muscles what his mom said his father used to call
labor-fucked, the old man’s way of suggesting that work is its own reward.
I’m sorry, Dad-
(click here) to continue reading...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About Christopher Ransom:
Christopher Ransom was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, but he doesn’t eat hamburgers made of vegetables or drive an SUV with a Save the Planet bumper sticker.
After studying literature at Colorado State University, he won citations for outstanding customer service at the world famous McGuckin Hardware, and later managed Bushmaster Reptiles, an international wholesale importer of exotic species. There he learned to handle, feed, and medicate pythons, boas, vipers, cobras, monitor lizards, and hundreds of other fauna native to Indonesia, Africa, China, and the Americas.
At the age of 25, Chris and his soon-to-be wife Pia moved to New York City for two years, where he worked as an ad sales assistant at Entertainment Weekly, and later as a sales executive for Screaming Media. Approximately six months prior to the firm going public, he made the brilliant financial decision to move to Los Angeles to pursue a screenwriting career. There he sold not a single screenplay, but continued to ride the dot-com wave, managed a Barnes & Noble store, freelanced as a copywriter, and ate a lot of tacos at Baja Fresh.
In 2004, with their three rescued pound mutts—Cowboy, Nacho, and Tater-Tot—in tow, Chris and his wife relocated to a 140-year-old former birthing house in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Working as a copywriter for Famous Footwear in Madison, Chris spent the next three years conceiving and delivering his first novel, The Birthing House, which was recently published by the Sphere imprint of Little, Brown, in the UK, and will be released by St. Martin's Press in the US on August 4, 2009.
On January 25th, The Birthing House landed at #6 on the London Times list of fiction paperback best-sellers.
Among his heroes and influences, Christopher Ransom counts authors of genre-bending dark literature such as Dan Simmons, Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Jack Ketchum, as well as masters of urban and suburban noir such as Peter Blauner, Colin Harrison, Tom Perrotta, James Salter, and Pete Dexter.
He has a 7-foot long olive python from New Guinea, named Olivia. Olivia resides in a large terrarium in front of the author's desk, and can often be seen sunning herself or yawning in anticipation of her bi-weekly meal.
Chris is currently working full-time on his second novel.
Be sure to check out Christopher Ransom's awesome website:
http://www.ransomesque.com/index.html
3 comments:
This sounds great!
I'm not big on sex scenes that have nothing to do with the plot, but this one still sounds interesting. Thanks for the review.
--Anna
Diary of an Eccentric
Thanks for the great review, sounds interesting and something that I might like. I'll look around for it.
Dottie :)
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