Spoilers Ahead
The Last House on the Needless Street is a horror book written by Catriona Ward that follows Ted, a suspect in a missing child case from 11 years ago and is told through multiple points of view including one from Ted’s cat Olivia.
The book has been highly praised by numerous high profile authors including Joane Harris, Joe Hill, and the King of horror himself, Stephen King. King had even gone on to state that he hadn’t read anything this exciting since Gone Girl.
Plot-wise the book is great at building up suspense, creating an eerie environment, and keeping you deeply hooked to the story. The use of multiple points of view definitely adds to the story considering how none of the narrators is reliable, trustworthy, and even have all the information to satisfy our curiosity. And it creates a delicious environment where it feels the readers are getting portions of the story – like peeking inside Ted’s house from the peephole. It also enables the readers to change their view of Ted multiple times during the course of the book.
Regarding the ending of the book, the big reveal does tie up all ends and it is a pre-planned ending with enough foreshadowing and clues left for the readers throughout the book. However, there are times in the book where it feels like the author is trying to misdirect the reader and it sort of feels too obviously intentional. It sort of felt like a self-congratulatory ending where it feels like the book is trying to outsmart the readers.
Mental Illness as a Horror Trope
When I got to the first chapter narrated by Ted’s religious cat Olivia, the first assumption that I made was that the book is based on magical realism à la the work of Haruki Murakami – so I was prepared to write off all the unexplainable and contradictory elements that happen in the book to the magical nature of the world that they are living in and are supposed to be looked at as metaphors instead.
But as you read on a few more chapters, the author adds the existence of another classic horror trope – mental illness. You get a sense of where it is going, but you do want to ask yourself how much of the unexplainable elements to the existence of said mental illness and how much of it is indeed supernatural or magical. As you reach the end of the book, you realize that there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about this book and everything is tied together and rationalized thanks to the existence of mental illness in this book.
“I had always felt that there was something wrong with me. I was like one of the tracings I did on her baking paper, a bad one, where the comic book underneath slipped; the lines slewed across the page, and the picture became a monstrous version of itself.”
Catriona Ward
While you have to give ward credit for at least using the trope without villainizing the person suffering. Research has consistently showcased that people suffering from mental illness – including Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), like Ted – are more likely to be victims of crimes rather than criminals themselves. But despite the sympathetic portrayal of DID sufferers and the level of research the writer has done in regards to the condition, the use of the trope still makes me feel uncomfortable in some ways.
Horror has always been seen as a window to the communal psyche and has explored the deeper workings of the unconscious. Even books that are not specifically about people suffering from mental illnesses leave tons of rooms to be interpreted in that manner. So I do not think the author is necessarily doing a bad thing and needs to be stopped just because I am feeling uncomfortable. She has done two years worth of research and has listed 38 resources in her reference list. And I think that it’s not morally wrong of her to use this trope or anything.
But, that being said, I don’t think it’s unfair of me to feel very uncomfortable about how DID was used as a twist for the story. Combined with how the book ended, the book feels like a thriller pretending to be horror where all the horror elements are related to Ted’s condition and the condition was only put into the book to let the author shock the audience. Unlike most of the memorable horror books, this one does not have anything else to say – about our society or about our own psyche and fears. So, all the book wanted to do was tell a twist-filled story with subverted expectation and it found mental illness as a perfect tool to do so.
Conclusion
To conclude, the plot and narration device of the book is one of the best in recent horror, where the readers are left continuously disoriented in a good way but while the reveal at the end makes sense logically, it did not feel satisfying in any way. I guess the journey was a lot better than the destination.
And I can understand all the praise that it’s been getting, I genuinely do. But unlike Gone Girl – a book to which King compared this novel – this one does not have anything of depth and would not start any large-scale discussions. Instead, I imagine people recommending this book to others just for the Shyamalan-esque ending.
