House of Bad Memories, by Michael David Wilson
The Book
Synopsis:
From the author of The Girl in the Video comes a darkly comic thriller with an edge-of-your-seat climax.
Denny just wants to be the world’s best dad to his baby daughter, but things get messy when he starts hallucinating his estranged abusive stepfather, Frank. Then Frank winds up dead and Denny is held hostage by his junkie half-sister who demands he uncovers the cause of her father’s death.
Will Denny defeat his demons or be perpetually tortured for refusing to answer impossible questions?
House of Bad Memories is Funny Games meets This Is England with a Rosemary’s Baby under-taste.
My Review
House of Bad Memories is a frankly dark and deranged horror thriller, which takes you by unexpected turns from an apparently simple premise, written by Michael David Wilson and published by Cemetery Gates Media. We will be following Denny, a character whose only purpose in the life is becoming a good father, partly because his stepfather Frank was a horrible paternal figure for him.
After he starts seeing Frank in weird places, he soon discovers that Frank has recently died; but for some reason, he's even having conversations with this Frank figure (maybe is he insane?). Trust me when I say this is the least weird part of the book, as when he travels to attend Frank's funeral, he ends being kidnapped by his sister. Apparently, she wants to discover the cause of Frank's sudden death.
What starts with this premise soon becomes a delirious descent that will bring out the worst aspects that were inside Denny; nobody is what it seems to be, and discovering that behind his back, there were multiple layers of lies.
I can't seriously stress how weird this story is, but for some reason, it works well; the pacing might be a bit off for my taste, but if you like a book that touches at some points the extremes of gore, you are going to love it.
House of Bad Memories is a great story about how things can be deranged to the extreme, a book that will keep you glued to the page; you will need stomach to deal with parts of this novel, but it's part of its charm.
The Author/s
Michael David Wilson
Michael David Wilson is the founder of the popular UK horror website, podcast, and publisher, This Is Horror. Michael is the author of the novella, The Girl in the Video, and the novel, They’re Watching, co-written with Bob Pastorella. His work has appeared in various publications including The NoSleep Podcast, Dim Shores, Dark Moon Digest, and Hawk & Cleaver’s The Other Stories. Michael lives in Gifu, Japan. You can connect with Michael on Twitter @thisishorror.