What Moves the Dead, by T. Kingfisher
Edgar Allan Who?
After my month of reading nothing but Romance, I was pretty OVER IT and was looking to switch gears. When I got an ARC of T. Kingfisher’s new book, I knew it was the perfect thing to get me back into the dark and spoopy content of my norm, lol.
Normal disclaimer: I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher for my ~honest opinions~. Thank you to Netgalley + Tor Nightfire for early access. The book will be available to the public in July 2022.
What Moves the Dead, by T. Kingfisher
“The dead don’t walk. Except, sometimes, when they do.”
Wow wow, I liked this…a lot more than I expected?
To start, this lil novella is a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. I don’t necessarily think reading Poe’s version is an essential pre-requisite? Like, you could totally just jump right into this book and enjoy it in it’s own right. That being said, I did a quick read/deep-dive into Poe (once a nerd, always a nerd, I guess) and I do think that brushing up a lil on Poe before delving into What Moves the Dead helped me appreciate the story a lot more. As a result, a lot of my ~thoughts~ below relate to how this version compares to the original, just as a heads up, haha.
If you don’t want to read Poe’s story (it’s short but I also get it, Poe’s emo butt isn’t for everybody) but want the backstory, there’s obviously loads of summaries online and plenty of short videos on YouTube, including this one (which is v casual but does a great job, and is funny too).
Plot: So, yeah, it’s Fall of the House of Usher retelling, but with some originality laced throughout too. The book opens with our narrator, a soldier named Alex Easton, having received word that their childhood friend (Madeline Usher) is dying. Madeline lives—along with her brother, Roderick—in their crumbling old family mansion, located in a rural countryside. Alex rushes to the ancestral home, where things quickly get…weird. Madeline is very obviously sick, but no one can figure out what’s afflicting her. Roderick, while faring somewhat better than Madeline, is also not quite right. He’s having horrible nightmares, and he’s hearing things that no one else can hear. Throw in a glowing lake, a proper British mycologist (who also happens to be the maiden aunt of Beatrix Potter??), creepy hares, and a lot of fungus, and we have ourselves a dark, Gothic mystery.
Thoughts: One thing that popped into my mind while I was reading this is that it giving me strong Mexican Gothic vibes—so if you liked that one, I’d recommend this book for sure. (The author also mentions the similarities in the “authors note” at the end, so I’m glad I was on the mark with my feelings, haha).
Right off the bat for me, it seemed like this was going to be a pretty straight forward retelling of Poe’s short story—the book opens with tons of similarities, right down to the names of the characters. But given that this novella is about 3-4 times as long as the original tale, I knew that it had to eventually serve something a little different. And BOY, did it!
First of all, we got an expanded cast of characters: in Poe’s original, it is pretty much just the narrator, Roderick, and Madeline. In this version, we get a few other characters that help to progress the plot, and imo add a lot of dimension to the story. Plus, in the original, the narrator is literally just that—we don’t know much about him, not even a name—but here we really get to know Alex Easton, the nonbinary soldier who unwravels the mystery of what’s going on in the House of Usher. I thought the non-binary identity of this character (and the use of unusual pronouns) were super interesting, and had me thinking a lot about the themes of the original work/why Kingfisher decided to include this detail. I will say too that the unusual pronouns come into play toward the end of the story, in a way I didn’t expect.
In Poe's version, Madeline as a character is barely in the story—iirc we don’t really hear from her at all, and she kind of just exists as the embodiment of her illness and to progress the spooky plot. In Kingfisher’s tale, Madeline is much more present as a character, takes up a lot more space on the page, and plays a larger role, imo.
In both versions, I love the spooky atmosphere and really, the anthropomorphism. Poe did this well in the original, and Kingfisher takes it further in her version: not only does the House have these qualities, but so too do the lake, the animals, and fungus .
I think one major difference here is obvious: Poe’s story is very open-ended, leaving the reader to question what’s actually going on in the House of Usher and come to their own conclusions. It’s a bit more psychological, kind of making the reader question whether this is a tale of insanity, of something supernatural, etc. Here, Kingfisher tells the story of the same mystery, but she gives the reader the disturbing and terrifying answers.
I will say as well that whereas the original House of Usher had kind of “haunted house” vibes, I didn’t really feel that way here. It is true that the house in this book is dark, dreary, scary, and very present in the story—but, I don’t think we are every really made to feel like the house itself is the problem, if that makes sense? That said, I don’t really have feelings about this one way or the other. I do love a good haunted house story, but I didn’t feel like the exclusion of hints toward a ‘haunting’ was problematic for me here.
There are some scenes in this book that really creeped me out! The descriptions and moments in the book involving the hares especially spooked me, as did everything going on with Madeline, especially toward the ending of the book. The descriptors were appropriately gruesome and unsettling, and made me cringe a few times—in that good, satisfying way that only horror fans really understand, haha. I will not spoil anything by expanding on what I mean (if you read it, the moments will be obvious, haha) but trust me: it is very dark and very weird!
Overall I really enjoyed this novella. I feel like the author did a great job at taking a classic gothic tale and remaining true to the original while also expanding and adding a ton, providing an explanation and closure. The language and descriptions are all fantastic, and while this is definitely a dark and spooky book, I appreciated that here and there we got little snippets of humor and snark, too.
This was my first book by T. Kingfisher (surprising) and I feel like I will definitely be checking out more of her work!
Again, I got this as an electronic ARC, so this book is not going to be available until July of this year—a few months way, but I’d definitely recommend adding it to your lists and keeping an eye out for it’s release :)
-Amy
PS: In my Googling around about The Fall of the House of Usher, I found that apparently Netflix is making a mini series out of it? Huh. I’ll be curious to check that out —though I fear they will do it like they did Haunting of Hill House (ie: it was like, a FINE show that I obviously binge-watched like the spooky little freak I am, but it was NOTHING at all like the book in such a way that my Shirley Jackson loving little heart was enraged). Guess we’ll see!