Healing the Soul
Author uses psychology background to enhance supernatural thriller
by Glenn Scofield Williams
The problem with most supernatural thrillers is the way they assume the reader is stupid. You know, some gratuitously evil dead guy is pissed off about something or other and wreaks havoc in improbable ways on some poor, innocent bystander. Yeah, OK, whatever. These novels can sometimes be exciting in the moment, but they usually offer no real depth of thought or complexity of character, and they often leave you more disappointed than thrilled.
Luckily, every now and then, the thinking ghost story lover gets what he deserves; this winter, that story is The Legacy of Emily Hargraves (Trafford Publishing, 2007; $29.95 softcover). This is a fresh, intelligent and really satisfying read. Legacy got me good-in the gut and in the mind. It's thrilling-hell, at times it's nerve-wracking-but at the same time it's emotionally moving, sophisticated and funny. This is a ghost story with meat on its bones, and it's as gratifying as a supernatural thriller can get.
The author is Alan Rose, a gay writer who lives outside Woodland, Wash., and has a degree in psychology and philosophy. He has a quick mind and a warm soul, and this comes through in a kind of thoughtful storytelling always present in the novel.
Legacy begins when a cute, smart gay couple, James and Jerry, move into a Capitol Hill mansion in Seattle, recently inherited when James' great aunt Emily Hargraves died at a venerable age. When the house begins "acting up," James and Jerry go in pursuit of the truth behind the identity of the otherworldly resident(s?) and stumble into a whole series of horrors, traumas and interesting characters. Who is the naked young man running into the nearby woods? Who is the young woman invading Jerry's sleep? Can they find the answers to these questions before it kills one of them?
According to Rose, there is more scientific documentation on paranormal phenomena than we are led to believe. Although reluctant to call himself a "believer," he thinks it's wise to entertain the possibilities of the existence of such phenomena.
"My German grandmother had a psychic ability," Rose admits. "I was really fascinated, and I loved to get my grandmother to talk about her experiences, because to her it was no big thing; other people have it, too. My mother had psychic abilities as well, but she didn't like to talk about it at all.
"My grandmother was dying in the hospital when I was about 16, and my mother was with her. And my grandmother said: 'Ah, Lili, don't worry! Once I'm gone I'll come back and tell you I'm OK.' And Mom said: 'No, no, Mom! When you're gone, you're gone! Don't come back!' But I would have loved it."
Legacy is a real mind-bender, a thought-provoking novel that at times is an extraordinary page-turner. I'm serious-I missed several bus stops reading this book.
Rose put a lot of research on psychic and paranormal phenomenon into Legacy. Through his personal research and through his studies in psychology and philosophy, he brings to the novel a tense believability that at times leaves you with a breathless "aha!"
"Psychotherapy literally means 'healing the soul', " says Rose. "In the traditional sense, that's what spirituality is all about. This book is an allegory of how the soul can fracture and how it can heal."
But to publish a smart thriller, Rose had to reject some sweet offers.
"One publisher wanted me to cut out a quarter or more of the novel," he explains. "They wanted me to take out all the paranormal stuff, the theory, and just wanted a lean, stripped-down thriller. I realized that if this book was going to be published by a mainstream publisher, it wasn't going to end up the book I wanted to write.
"It's like when people read The Name of the Rose," Rose says. "I love that book. But if you take out all the heresies and the stories of how the church was struggling with the state and science, you have basically a mediocre detective story set in a monastery. So I'm pleased I published with Trafford, because I was able to publish the book I wanted to write."
I am one reader who is so glad he did.