This Cursed House

In 1962, Jemma Baker decides to leave Chicago and start a new life somewhere else. She had been happy there, working as a teacher and living with the man she loved, but that all changed when he started an affair with another woman, who is now pregnant. After losing her job following a suicide attempt, Jemma placed an ad in the paper seeking work as a tutor.

Excited to receive an offer of employment from the wealthy Duchon family in Louisiana with a generous salary, she jumped at the chance to escape without asking for details of the job.

Traveling to Louisiana was a bit of a shock for African American Jemma. She had always felt accepted in Chicago, but Jim Crow laws were still in force in the South, and Jemma encountered segregation for the first time, making her feel unwelcome. Once she arrived at the Duchons’ fading antebellum mansion, she discovered there were, in fact, no children in the family for her to tutor, and it wasn’t exactly clear what she had been hired to do.

In this accomplished debut novel exploring topics of racism, slavery, family, and forgiveness, author Del Sandeen has generated a perfect Southern Gothic vibe, both chilling and suspenseful. The Duchon family is eerily beautiful and decidedly creepy, dressing in outmoded clothing and never leaving the house or grounds. Ruled over by the matriarch, Honorine, the household consists of her widowed son and daughter, two grandchildren in their twenties, and a maid, Agnes, who is mute. Calling themselves “colored” despite being able to pass as white, they say they are proud of their Black heritage but view darker-skinned Jemma as racially inferior.

At first, Jemma thinks the family is just strangely reclusive and doesn’t want to mix in society. But then she discovers that a number of family members have died at regular intervals, and there is a much more sinister explanation for why they have been trapped in their home for twenty-seven years. It’s one that she is now expected to resolve so they can once again go out into the world.

As the narrator, Jemma is a likable, well-drawn character, both strong and resourceful. Although it’s not always clear what motivates her to help this strange family when they treat her so poorly, she does discover that she has a strong link to them, going back to her birth. Her ability to see the many ghosts in the house contributes to the eeriness, and this aspect could perhaps have been played up more to add to the ethereal atmosphere and tension. The Duchons are portrayed as selfish and insular, with their weird behavior and relationships with each other adding to the unsettling undercurrents in the house.

Ghosts, curses, long-hidden secrets, and a horrific and shameful history of slavery all contribute to the atmosphere of this Gothic novel. It’s not an intense, terror-packed horror novel, but rather a slower burn of a sinister tale based on an intriguing premise.

With thanks to Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House, for a copy to read.