Review: Hazardous Spirits by Anbara Salam
Hazardous Spirits by Anbara Salam is set in early 1920s Edinburgh, a time and place still very much impacted by the losses of WWI. Historically, this period was marked by a rise in mediums and Spiritualism as a means to contact the thousands of people killed during a war, as well as bring family members closure on their grief. The narrative follows Evelyn and Robert Hazard, a young couple whose life is turned upside when Robert, an unassuming accountant, reveals to Evelyn that he can hear messages from spirits. Robert also confesses has been attending meetings at the city’s Spiritualist Library and Hall, as well as having been taken under the tutelage of a ten year old medium prodigy, Clarence.
Evie is understandably very skeptical and hesitant at first. But slowly, as Robert’s alleged gift brings them into high brow social circles, Evie begins to accept his “gift” given the new crowd and social status she has been brought into. To be honest, I found both Evelyn and Robert to be irritating and unlikable for their own unique reasons. Evelyn is selfish and superficial, and only accepts Robert’s new venture after they are brought into the fold of a new social circle involving sprawling country estates, glamorous parties, and influential people she “befriends.” I put that in quotes because Evelyn doesn’t seem to genuinely like anyone except her late sister, Dolly. There were a few glimmers of relating to Evie (re her not wanting kids and her family being patronizing about that,) but I mostly found her judgemental nature of others very off-putting. Robert, on the other hand, seems very flaky, naive, and drippy, yet underneath all that it seems clear he has something to prove to the world since he was unable to serve in WWI due to a heart issue.
The only characters I liked in Hazardous Spirits were Clarence, the ten year old who is clearly being exploited by his family, and Flossie, Evelyn’s “frenemy” of sorts who Evelyn seems to privately judge very harshly at every turn. Anbara Salam has aptly conjured the glamorous, fast, “bright young things” social circles of the early 20s, yet the plot beneath is often at an arm’s length in that almost too much has been left up to interpretation or for the reader to fill in the gaps. The novel will at times abruptly switch to the past, causing temporal confusion until I was able to understand it was a flashback. Many plot points from Evelyn’s past are alluded to, but never paid out upon. What’s more, the novel ends quite abruptly without any real closure, leaving this reader feeling quite left hanging. Hazardous Spirits is less about mediums and Spiritualism, and more about the truth. What is the truth, and is it only in the eye of the beholder?
