Jean Ray - Malpertuis

[giantsilkmoth]

It's always refreshing to read weird fiction that's truly WEIRD, as opposed to just about strange things happening. Jean Ray's major novel delivers a particularly strange haunted house story, one that increases in surrealism and metaphysics until it ends up taking apart the whole genre and rebuilding it into something else. Ray's language is also wonderful, coating the house in dripping shadows and flickering lights, and his agility of tone between parody, disorientation, and genuinely scary stuff is really impressive. An absolute banger, though probably not for everyone.