The Haunted House

by Rebecca Brown

Long out of print, Rebecca Brown’s brilliant debut novel explores the psychic repercussions of growing up in an alcoholic family, and the ways in which one woman’s past continues to inform and inhabit her life. Robin Daley’s childhood is dominated by a sense of Her hard-drinking father disappears as suddenly and unexpectedly as he arrives. Her adulthood offers an escape, but strange things happen when the dark corners and locked rooms of family life are revealed. Rebecca Brown is the author of The Gifts of the Body , The Last Time I Saw You , and The End of Youth . She lives in Seattle.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Lesbian

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 1987

About the author

Rebecca Brown’s diverse oeuvre contains collections of essays and short stories, a fictionalized autobiography, a modern bestiary, a memoir in the guise of a medical dictionary, a libretto for a dance opera, a play, and various kinds of fantasy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_...

Reviews

[charlotte, · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rep: lesbian mc

CWs: alcohol abuse

[City Lights Booksellers & Publishers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published in 1986, Rebecca Brown’s brilliant first novel explores the psychic repercussions of growing up in an alcoholic family, and the ways in which one woman’s past continues to inform and inhabit her life. Robin Daley’s childhood is dominated by a sense of impermanence: her father, a flamboyant, hard-drinking military pilot whom Robin both idolizes and resents, disappears as suddenly and unexpectedly as he arrives; her family is forever packing and unpacking their possessions as they move from one place to the next. Her adulthood offers an escape, a chance to find what it is she longs for--security, love, a place to call home. But strange things happen when the dark corners and locked rooms of family life are revealed, and Robin finds that her world is still haunted by her past in ways that are wildly fantastic and terribly real.

“A doom-filled heart-aching first novel, flooded with meditative fantasy.” -- Kirkus Review

“Thank goodness for once one can say here is a real new voice—ripe and imaginative, often funny, and sliding craftily between fact and wishful fantasy.” – The Sunday Times (London)

“Exceptionally well written . . . Rebecca Brown takes her readers from the ordinary realities of army-base living and often gone, drinking/drunken pilot father into the unrealities of living with adults in denial, where the thin lines between daily life and reality shrink and disappear.” -- Carol Seajay, Feminist Bookstore News

[Chana · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just wrote a review and it isn't here. That is pretty much the story of this book. Robin is her own Haunted House, she is big time Cracked. I didn't enjoy my trip through her mental illness nor did I understand whatever brilliant analogies were intended. One of the worst reading experiences i've ever had.

[Yogeeta Yeram · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a book 🙌
It was completely slow until the first 2 parts and at the last, phew!
This book ran at the speed of light and here I am, left with all the creepy and horror feeling
The end could have been much better though.

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly metaphorical. I do admit a lot of it went over my head in the first 2 parts, but the third part was incredible. Overall I loved the writing and it’s a really unique statement about the complexities of human relationships.

[Grace Ballard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I love her narrative style. She tells and retells memories to give an overall feeling of the experience and how it lives on in her mind, rather than nailing the narrative to facts. It really worked for me. I could easily feel the protagonist's relationship to her parents, and I understood it on a deeper level than I would had I just read what literally happened.

[aaliyah ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is like listening to chamber of reflections on repeat for hours.

[Philip Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be completely transparent: I'm not as familiar with Rebecca's work as I should be. I've known of her by reputation for more than a decade, my good friends made an exquisite hand-bound edition of her book, Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary, she's been my teacher at Richard Hugo House, and she also happens to be a neighbor. So, I've loved the idea of Rebecca Brown, I've learned much from her and have an intense respect for her �����but I couldn't honestly say I knew her work. Therefore I started at the beginning with The Haunted House.

The Haunted House is exceedingly different from the work I do know of hers. The language is exquisite, some of the metaphors and turns of phrase resonating deep in me and staying close at hand throughout my day. Considering the subject matter declared on the book jacket, it maintains a muted intensity. The truest word that I can come up with to describe the book, and I hope it does not come off as dismissive as it really is quite complex, is: Dear. It is just a dear book in it's words, in it's remembrances, or lack thereof that the character Robin displays. I was just struck by it and hope I will find similarities as I search out the rest of Rebecca's work.

I recommend it and suggest picking it up from your local independent bookseller. I happened to find mine used, a 1990 Seal Press edition in mint condition at Spine & Crown.

��� Philip Swanstrom Shaw

[P. Flaherty Pagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brown adds touches of fantasy to an intense, creative, witty, dark tale of a breaking family so that it is touched with wonder. More proof that, in general, she's brilliant! Some readers and reviewers simplify Brown's work as "LGBT writing," which by one definition it could be, but identity and gender are just two of the varied ideas that she tackles in her prose. There's something in her work for everyone. Anyone who loves language will appreciate her writing. Anyone who ever had a father, or wanted one, will take interesting ideas away from this book!

[Lesley Hazleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, so I know Rebecca -- we're friends, and to me she is the divine Ms Brown. But good god I'd give my eye teeth to be able to write like her. 'The Haunted House' is her first novel, just back in print, and there's no way to describe how daringly she writes except to say 'Read her, Read her, Read her!' Read this one, and 'Gifts of the Body', and 'The End of Youth'... I know, I know, I'll shut up.

[Pris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book by Rebecca Brown I read, and it has stayed in my memory for years. A great coming of age novel for the boomer generation, complete with moon-landing, disgusting goings-on by the pool, family tensions, and conflict between a military father and a rebellious daughter. Its lesbian theme is understated, natural, its adolescent tone highly convincing. Poetic in an unusual way, The Haunted House would be a good introduction to this unique writer.

[Rosie · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book was probably very good but
I read about 60 pages and gave up. Some of it made no sense to me and it just seemed very disjointed and some times sentences and paragraphs were repeated. I dont know if that a typo thing or on purpose...reading the book you would know what I mean by that.


Very deep emotional book

[Frankie Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

this one rattles ghost chains/

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Putting this copy up for adoption.