Alix E. Harrow’s new book Starling House is, I’m guessing, at least partly inspired by Alix E. Harrow’s own life in rural Kentucky. The book is set in the monumentally shitty old coal town of Eden, Kentucky. The coal mines had given out years ago; all there is now is a coal-fired power plant whose owners find it easier and cheaper to pay EPA fines than actually clean anything up.
Opal shares a room in a crappy motel with her younger brother Jasper - their mom had a thing for gemstones - scratching out a living working the register at the local Tractor Supply. Jasper is pretty much all she has, aside from the dreams. These include nightmares of crashing and drowning (natural, given the car accident that killed their mom), but also dreams of Starling House. Starling House is a big, creepy mansion in Eden, connected both to the Gravely family (that owns the power plant, and owned the mines before that) and to Eleanor Starling, the late 19th century author of a very gothic book of children's stories. Eleanor Starling married into the Gravely family, was widowed, and then married her late husband’s brother, and was widowed again. She then took the money she got from the Gravelys, built her mansion, and lived as a recluse until she disappeared.
Or so the tale around town goes, anyway. How much truth is there in it? Who can say, but some things Opal knows for sure: she’s always been fascinated by Starling House, and always been told to stay away from it and the current owner, Arthur Starling.
This is very much a Southern Gothic story. Opal is a fascinating protagonist, with a lot of the same defiant fire in her as can be found in James Juniper Eastwood and a lot of the same stubborn determination as in Agnes Amaranth Eastwood (Once and Future Witches being the other Alix Harrow book I’ve read). She wants to take care of Jasper as best she can, and wants him to be able to get out of Eden and the grinding poverty of their lives. She takes no shit from anybody. And she divides all her desires into “things she wants” and “things she needs,” and is absolutely ruthless with herself in cutting off the “wants” and focusing on the “needs” (most of which are centered on Jasper).
A lot of this book is very bleak, as it’s a very true-to-life picture of a desperately poor Appalachian town. I myself grew up in the Appalachians; my hometown was nice enough, but I know enough places like Eden to recognize the truth baked into this book.
Overall, this was an excellent novel. A great choice for anyone wanting to get into the spirit of the season this October.
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