THE UNSEEN
Alexandra Sokoloff
Minotaur Books
Thriller
ISBN: 9780312384708
Alexandra Sokoloff’s novels flirt, entrance and seduce. Yes, they have elements of suspense, horror and, of course, romance. But unlike many works of fiction that skirt the borders of the horror genre or embrace it wholeheartedly, Sokoloff gently (and, on occasion, not so gently) nudges her reader into that bright, airy room with the crisp sheets and the partner with eyes so full of promise. It isn’t until the spiders stop dropping on your bare back that you realize maybe all is not as it seems, even though the webs here and there should have given you plenty of warning.
Sokoloff’s work is much closer to Shirley Jackson’s than to Craig Spector’s; I was especially put in the mind of the former’s work while reading THE UNSEEN, Sokoloff’s latest novel. It is not that Sokoloff treads the territory that Jackson explored so well; rather, Sokoloff is both completing the work that Jackson left undone while expanding the boundaries that Jackson staked out. Thus, when you read this book, please remember my opening remarks.
The first third of THE UNSEEN entrances. We watch how Dr. Laurel MacDonald, a professor of psychology, catches her fiancée in a leg-lock with a graduate student and immediately moves herself and her emotional baggage to Durham, North Carolina, where she has accepted a teaching position at Duke University. Mindful of the publish-or-perish maxim, MacDonald is struggling for a book topic when she stumbles upon the records of the Rhine ESP experiments that were conducted at Duke. MacDonald feels a strange draw to the research that was done, and more so when she discovers that her uncle, a gentle if odd recluse, appears to have some vague abilities of his own in the realm.
While setting up her story, Sokoloff describes Durham and the Duke campus with an appreciative and practiced eye; she is one of those rare authors who not only can make you fall in love with a locale but also compel you to jump into an automobile for a road trip to check it out for yourself. Sokoloff additionally provides MacDonald with a potential romantic interest in the form of fellow professor Brendan Cody, a burning flame that MacDonald flits around without being singed.
Which brings us to the second third of THE UNSEEN. The research of the professorial pair uncovers something referred to as the Folger House, a bizarre, long-abandoned structure that is not one house, but three joined together in the North Carolina countryside. Something happened in the Folger House that has been hidden in the mists of time, involving death, insanity, disappearances and, at the heart of it all, the apparent manifestation of a poltergeist. MacDonald and Cody, with a couple of oversexed and immature graduate students who have scored well above average in ESP testing, move into Folger House hoping to awaken whatever, or whoever, is within, in order to prove, once and for all, the existence of poltergeist activity.
This brings us to the final third of THE UNSEEN, and the seduction. Folger House reveals its secrets slowly and with some reluctance at first, but the manifestations come fast and furiously. That quartet is in terrible danger, and from more than one source. By the time all that can be revealed is revealed, Sokoloff has provided a new and interesting twist to the genre, one that will stay with the reader long after the book has been read.
Sokoloff is a quiet, understated master of the art of taking short, almost toss-off scenes and making them unforgettable. She performs this magic a number of times here: not to reveal anything, but one vignette involves silverware, another footprints, and yet another a puddle of water. The hair on the back of my neck may never lay down. The footprint scene, in particular, is understated, yet in its own way is as frightening as the encounter with the twin girls in the hallway of the Overlook Hotel in THE SHINING. If you are unfamiliar with Sokoloff’s work, THE UNSEEN is a great place to begin.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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