The House of Last Resort

You do not have to travel as far as Italy to get a bargain house, but I like the hills and sunshine of Sicily over a row of abandoned terrace housing in the wet UK. In the past you could pick up houses for as little as £1/€1 in both these places as the local councils encouraged younger people to move to the area. Give me vineyards over binyards, except in Christopher Golden’s The House of Last Resort, the large, abandoned house may have just been left alone by the locals for a reason. 

Tommy and Kate Publisi have chosen to swap the hustle bustle of American cities for the quiet life in Italy. They have picked up a bargain €1 house in the small town of Becchina. The locals are welcoming, and Tommy and Kate do not take long to start appreciating their new life, but no one told them about the tremors, or the catacombs. The tombs hold some of the oldest architecture in Sicily. Is this a great tourist opportunity for the town, or its biggest curse? 

House is an unapologetically old school horror, the type that builds the tension up slowly throughout the novel, only to go out in a big bang. For the book to work the central relationship of Tommy and Kate must feel genuine. How deeply the reader thinks they are in love will impact how the ending hits home. I am not one for relationships in books, but even I was able to see that they truly complement one another and are tackling this new challenge together. 

As we are being introduced to the Publisi family, we are also introduced to the town of Becchina and its residents. Golden has done what many good writers do and has based the book on a form of truth. You can buy house for cheap in Italian towns. The location and the premise feel true. From this base the author can start layering the horror. 

Initially, the book is a relationship drama with spooky supernatural elements. However, are they supernatural? There is gaslighting in the book. Are the characters seeing ghosts or just stressed? Horror is great at dealing with people not believing one another. The back and forth between Tommy and Kate adds to the drama, do they trust the other? 

As the story evolves the action and the horror increases. For the genre it is not extreme or too violent. A reader fresh to the genre will be shocked, but hardened readers of horror will take it all in their stride and enjoy the journey. The book blends a little Folk Horror with Supernatural Horror. The pace makes it a slower book, reminiscent of the horror books of the 80s and 90s. If you like to get to know your characters before, they are possibly flayed alive, then House is a book for you.