desperate people do desperate things, things they might later regret. the family was struggling financially, and this helped them out of a tight spot. since we are relying on the memory of an eight-year-old who was kept out of the planning stages, the how of this is unclear but it doesn't come across as implausible or silly, the way it does in what i just wrote. under the direction of the inscrutable father wanderly, an exorcism was prescribed and somehow the whole thing became a media event and was filmed for television as a reality show. when her condition worsened, and events more sinister and inexplicable occurred, her unemployed father turned to the church in desperation. when marjorie began acting erratically, her parents sent her to a psychiatrist and she was put on medication. it cuts between merry-now and merry's immersive recollections of the events that destroyed her family. The book is mostly told through the eyes of merry - now twenty-three years old - meeting with a woman who is writing a book about marjorie and the family's experiences. on the one hand, this rests firmly in the canon of possession lit, and all the expectations are met: the voices, the vomit, the levitation, the inappropriate sexual acts, but there's a cheekiness to it at all times - a little wink as it slightly adjusts these elements so that they are present, but slightly "off." this isn't played for horror, more for unease and a sort of evaluation of the possession genre itself. your attention, i have it, yes? this is both a horror novel and a psychological suspense novel, but then it goes the extra step into self-referential metafiction in a way that is natural and not gimmicky-annoying, probably because that part involves a delightful character named karen brissette. This book is about a fourteen-year-old girl named marjorie, her eight-year-old sister merry, and the events leading up to marjorie's exorcism. Paul tremblay interviews me, or "me" here:
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