Slade House

(by David Mitchell)

I first read Slade House back in April 2016, which was probably not the best timing: this is definitely better as a spooky season read than as a springtime read, especially because the action of the book takes place in late October at nine-year intervals, beginning in 1979 and ending in 2015. In 1979 we’re introduced to Nathan Bishop, who’s 13 and on his way to Slade House with his mom. Lady Norah Grayer has invited them to a “musical gathering,” but they’re running late and haven’t managed to find the entrance, which is somewhere down Slade Alley, which is “hemmed in by brick walls so high you can’t see anything” but sky. They eventually find the entrance and make their way into Slade House’s garden, which seems odd to Nathan—he can’t figure out “how such a big house and its garden can possibly fit” between the neighboring streets. But there’s another kid there who says he’s also 13, and the kid isn’t immediately mean to Nathan, which is a refreshing change, but then things get very creepy in a hurry. Each of the next sections of the book is similar: in late October, every nine years, there’s always some new person looking for the entrance to Slade House. And when they find the small iron door and make their way into the garden, what they find inside is always different, but also always the same.

I still haven’t read The Bone Clocks and I suspect the last section of Slade House might be more satisfying if I had, but this was still a fun re-read for this time of year.

And because I am me, this part jumped out to me as much this time around as it did the first time I read this: I am such a sucker for this particular kind of description: “The streetlights are coming on. The sun sinks into tarmac-gray clouds, over one-way mazes of brick houses, gasworks, muddy canals, old factories, unloved blocks of flats from the sixties, multistory car parks from the seventies, tatty-looking housing from the eighties, a neon-edged multiplex from the nineties. Cul-de-sacs, ring roads, bus lanes, flyovers.”