REVIEW: Grey Dog

For fans of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, Grey Dog by Elliott Gish is a gorgeous, haunting debut novel following a Canadian spinster and her strange new home. Normally, when a book starts with “1901,” I close it. I tragically cannot get behind a lot of historical fiction, but I stayed strong! And I am so glad I did.

Gish’s novel is the definition of gothic horror: a bleak setting, supernatural happenings, and a sense of evil that imbues the pages. Ada, our main character, is the newest schoolteacher in a tiny town. Her predecessor left suddenly — usually a reason to not take a job, but Ada is desperate after an as-yet-unknown transgression got her fired from her last post. Ada is a strange, sad character in a dark and depressing Canadian landscape. She finds little joy in her teachings and dwells heavily on her past traumas. Strange bugs, birds, sounds, and presences plague Ada in her new home, convincing her she’s going insane. This is increased by the medium of the novel: all of it is written in first person through Ada’s journal. She occasionally stops mid-sentence or doesn’t write for weeks, adding to the feeling that you are with her. Her unreliable narration ramps up throughout the book as she either spirals into madness or becomes more and more herself, depending on who you ask. The ending of this novel had me gripping my glass of wine so tight it should’ve shattered. The first thing I wrote when I finished was “it is so fun to read a book that makes me remember how much I love horror.”

Elliott Gish succeeds in breathing new life into the centuries-old genre of gothic horror. This was a beautiful first novel and I am beyond excited to read more of her work. A shocking five stars!

RATING: ☆☆☆☆☆