The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle
My rating: 2/5 cats
no.
that should be the whole review right there, just “no.”
this is supposed to be the story of heathcliff as a ten-year-old boy. so you have two central characters: the real-life housekeeper of the brontës and the-boy-who-would-be-heathcliff, who was fictional, correct?? and you have the housekeeper character ultimately telling this story to her charges, the four young brontë children, with dear emily listening raptly. how clumsy is that? you can’t market this as being a “prelude” to wuthering heights and then cop out and try to make it seem like it might only have been the inspiration for wuthering heights. but you also can’t have mary poppins taking tea with george orwell. this is baffling.
without the appeal of this being a preteen heathcliff, there is no real reason to read this. it is a lightweight ghost story that pretty much just rips off View Spoiler » (the original, not the remake, please), and doesn’t really contribute anything to the wuthering heights mythos.
it starts out fine – she does a really good job of describing the furniture and the birds and the kitchen area – it has all the trappings of a true brontë novel. but then it coarsens a little and slips with the introduction of the heathcliff character who is, of course, not called heathcliff at this point. he is a bratty boy who has seen some horrifying things in his short life and is wild and unmoored (hahahhaha DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE???) from christian respectability, but he is just some obnoxious kid – he could be anyone. and unless he seriously regressed after making his transition to wuthering heights (as she strangely suggests by his eschewing his english language to speak his “gibberish” tongue in his final scene – but why, except to account for his initial “gypsy” appearance at the beginning of W.H., and therefore making her novel “legitimate”), there is no way this kid became heathcliff, despite her wanting really badly for him to be. that was clunky, but i am ranting.
and this takes away any possibility of heathcliff actually being the bastard child of mr. earnshaw, which is only subtext, sure, but it does have impact and further complicates the bond between heathcliff and catherine.
the spirit is missing in this book. there is no subtlety – this is not a jamesian ghost story, even though it has all the right furniture. as much as i love retelling and filling-in-the-gaps stories for wuthering heights, they “gang aft agley”.
i love that the other reviews of this book are from teens saying “this makes me want to read wuthering heights!!! squee!!!” but i shudder to think what will happen with this character in their minds as they encounter the real deal.
HEATHCLIFF DOES NOT PLAY WITH DOLLS!!!
AND OH MY GOD View Spoiler »
