Where to begin with my disappointment in this hodgepodge of twisting ideas? Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions has been compared alongside favorite classics, such as Rebecca and The Woman in Black. For this reason, especially for its supposed relation to Susan Hill’s Gothic horror novel––my favorite––I picked it up. I found myself curious to see how the author would portray an inanimate object as terrifying (I’m thinking, what, a votive statue?) and I got my answer: She didn’t. It accomplished one thing, at least: It rekindled my love for The Woman in Black.
The Silent Companions opens upon the eve of the funeral for Elsie Bainbridge’s new husband, Rupert.
My mind: Sad. Tragic. This is gonna be good.
We meet our socialite along a ruddy country road as she travels to her new home, The Bridge, a remote estate in the English wilderness. As we’re bumping along with the complaining, newly widowed Elsie––who is more concerned with her loss of a social life an her new, muddied dress than her loss of husband––and her mousy (yet, breathing) companion, Sarah, through the fog, we run first into a seemingly pointless little incident with an emaciated cow.
Don’t expect this little scene to be given a satisfactory purpose, either––the cow is merely a prop for “furthering” the story.
Yeah. Okay.
Thus, resulting in our first taste of this novel’s confusion-inducing murk.
We are then whisked (sans groom) over the threshold of Elsie’s new and altogether depressing life––where (sometimes) interesting secrets lurk in shadowy corners––learning as we go that our “heroine” has literarily jumped from the frying pan of her sordid past into the fire of her smoky future.
Oh, yeah––and for some reason, there are haunted pop-up dolls.
This book––if you squint really, really hard––could be very loosely compared with the Gothic classic by the legend that is Susan Hill, for it is definitely worthy of the Gothic genre: madness, isolation, a derelict house, creepy spooks––I’m playing fast and loose with the word “creepy” here.
The book was atmospheric, I will credit it that much. Albeit, a little too atmospheric in some instances. It seems the focus became too much on the opportunity to describe a scent or a feeling at every turn, and not so much on where it should be––furthering the plot. And while we’re on the subject, a scent itself cannot be nauseous. Okay? Noxious, yes. Nauseating, most definitely. But nauseous? No.
What was nauseating was the constant hint-dropping. It got to be too much for me too quickly, with the “twists” too easily guessed. By page 200, I was just ready for it all to end. When you can see the conclusion coming that far out from the ending, the endless hint-dropping becomes daunting and unnecessary.
In fact, the book seemed to consist of “hints”, glimpses, smells, and “lurking” things, with no logical conclusions, extreme reactions, twists that seemed more like afterthoughts, for all the obnoxious hinting, and a very-hate-able main character who is always limping, running, passing out, complaining, and making very bad decisions.
The twists came abruptly, like slaps in the face, with no prelude or seemingly logical reasoning. For that matter, all the dropped hints were enough to tell you the secrets, well before the end of the book, without giving you the satisfaction of confirmation. Therefore, you’re left with over 100 pages, waiting for validation that will never come.
And you’re not waiting alone. You’re rolling along with bi-polar characters who lack their own voices. Out of nowhere, they would get an idea, feed off each other, change personalities in unison, then jump to conclusions. I won’t put up with dysfunctional exes like that, and I definitely don’t want it filling up the pages of what’s supposed to be an adventure into deliciously Gothic fiction.
The main plot itself, though brimming with Gothic atmosphere, seemed very rushed, as if the author raced to finish it, skipping over chunks of time and hurrying the reader along with her.
No time for detail? No prob, Bob! Have the main character trip over dust and conveniently faint for a chapter or five.
I found myself looking for meaning in a lot of the events, right up until the ending, and coming up empty-handed. The result felt at once like a speeding car going nowhere, and an idling one burning fuel. Like a child telling its audience a story, “And then this happened, whoa, and then––yeah, yeah! Whoosh! And then everybody dies. The end!”
But, don’t take my word for it.
Stories with soul. Strategy with spine. 