Lucie Whitehouse’s debut novel, The House at Midnight, is certainly written with the commercial market in mind, but beneath the lengthy descriptions and clichés which threaten to saturate the pages, a gripping storyline emerges which dramatises the complications of leaving youth and accepting adulthood.
The novel revolves around a tight-knit group of Oxford graduates, one of whom, Lucas, has inherited ‘a Cotswold stone-pilestone’ from his uncle who recently committed suicide. The group gathers at the house for New Year’s Eve where the narrator, Jo, immediately senses something sinister and oppressive about the atmosphere of the grand house. Predictably, the house, and the economic inequality it introduces, unbalances the social dynamic, and there follows a series of relationships, affairs and heart-breaks which lead to the dissolution of the group.
The opening line of the novel, ‘Even now, I can remember the first time I saw the house as clearly as if there were a video of it playing in my head’ should prepare the reader for the lack of subtlety that afflicts the book. The apolitical characters lack depth and are accordingly hard to warm to. Characterisations: ‘We hated sports, especially the team varieties, and loved indie music, which we listened to all the time’ and ‘Lucas, wearing a black corduroy jacket that gave him an air of the Left Bank’ do nothing to elevate the characters above social stereotypes. The indulgence of abundant glaring classical allusion, insertions of Ancient Greek proverbs such as ‘μεγαν αγαν – nothing in excess’ and superfluously detailed page-long descriptions of classical paintings, suggest that Whitehouse has not wholly left her Oxford days behind. With the book centered around an impressive house and a small group of friends from an elite university, it seeks association with The Great Gatsby or Bridsehead Revisited, but transparent references such as ‘the wind might have been blowing across Oxfordshire but Long Island Sound and Jay Gatsby might have stepped away just a moment before’ refuse the refinement of such established classics.
Although hardly an intellectual tour de force, the dramas which the group endures make for an exciting page-turner as Whitehouse imbues familiar Oxbridge aspirations with a Gothic doom. Jo’s disillusionment at the frustration of her unfulfilled ambitions lends the novel a personal poignancy, realising some of the fears that haunt the average undergraduate. The gang’s lust, obsession, ambition and sheer desperation suck the reader into the mysterious melodrama. It’s probably worth a read as an escapist distraction from the less grandiose realities of the average coffee and ink stained Oxford experience.
by Francesca Angelini
The House at Midnight was published in January by Bloomsbury, £12.99 (hardback)
Book Review: The House at Midnight, by Lucie Whitehouse
