Just in time for the season (despite this lovely resurgence of summer weather), I have for you a spooky book review!
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Trespass is the debut novella from Grand Rapids author and independent publisher Christopher Gibbons. The book recounts a firsthand experience with a malicious personal haunting.
At the opening of the tale, we begin several journeys with the unnamed narrator – a house becoming a home, a presence making itself more and more apparent, and changing perceptions of the self and others through a changing faith. A strong plot drives the story forward, though the narrator’s introspection brings the piece its deeper dimension.
With his wife and young children, our protagonist has just purchased a large, 100 year old house in a comfortable east end neighborhood. Although the family loves the stately Tudor, and relishes in the labor that will make it their own, they become uncomfortably aware that someone in the house wants them gone. Through a series of sensations, dreams, visions and disturbances, the narrator learns that the spirit in his home is angry, and nurtures that anger by acting upon it, and perhaps even spreading it to those he torments.
The increasingly upset husband and father seeks the help of both traditional and not so traditional (from his Catholic standpoint) professionals. Dismayed but accepting of the lack of answers he receives from the church, he opens up to Native spiritualists and a neighbor, hoping their convictions will influence the ghost to abandon the family’s home. The novella gives us episodes of this particular journey, spanning years of alternating quiet and elevating distress, both relative to the supernatural activity.
The narrator’s long held Catholic faith is of particular interest in all parts of the story. In the prologue, he proclaims himself a typical Christian, practicing as he was taught, passively hoping for the realities of redemption and the afterlife rather than truly believing in them.
Experiencing the trespasser in his home and faith changes things somewhat.
During his journey with the malicious spirit, he develops, through his anger and deep need to be proactive in the situation, a new perspective of human imperfection and peace. It is this: As creatures of free will, we have to forgive ourselves in order to be a part of God’s perfect plan. He makes this statement to emphasize that point:
“Our notion of judgement requires that a price be paid. I think the expression of God’s perfect will, which is beyond our experience, does not include such conventions.”
Our narrator never departs from his religion or tradition, but moves to a more active belief within it – God gives us wonderful gifts (including the self), and it is up to us to deserve and appreciate them, giving ourselves over to a perfect and harmonious will. By failing in this, the haunting spirit doomed himself to entrapment by his own anger.
While the protection of the home through banishment of the ghost is the purpose of the plot, it is through these revelations that our protagonist ultimately finds his peace.
At times, the narrator’s tangents on faith and the place of the faithful become mildly distracting from the overall story. It is easy to get a little lost in the philosophies he sorts through in these pockets of the novella. However, by the end, we understand that Gibbons is demonstrating the growth of his protagonist, which is essential to the journey as whole.
One of the refreshing things about Trespass is the general lack of “ghost porn.” At no point does the story feel theatrically embellished, and is thus all the more unsettling for how real it is. The reader is able to imagine such an experience in her own home, her own dreams and within the context of learned faith and beloved family.
As we advance into the darker days and story-filled nights of the Halloween season, I suggest you give Trespass a read. It’s like no other ghost story you’ve read before, and might just have you questioning what you thought you believed, as well as that shadow out the corner of your eye.
To learn more about obtaining Trespass for yourself, and the other works produced by Gibbons, please visit Morris Avenue Publishing.