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Demonic possession or psychic break? One of Esquire's Top 50 horror novels of all time delves deep into the terrifying consequences of losing control. "A perfect horror novel."—Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea. The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. A book on demon possession suggests that the figure on the shore could be the demon Naamah, known to scholars of the Kabbalah as the second wife of Adam, who stole into his dreams and tricked him into fathering her child. Whatever the case, as the violence of her erratic behavior increases, Amanda knows that she must act to put her life right, or see it destroyed. This new edition of the cult classic features a brand new post-script by the author and an "Are You Possessed?" questionnaire.
Demonic possession or psychic break? One of Esquire's Top 50 horror novels of all time delves deep into the terrifying consequences of losing control. "A perfect horror novel."—Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea. The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. A book on demon possession suggests that the figure on the shore could be the demon Naamah, known to scholars of the Kabbalah as the second wife of Adam, who stole into his dreams and tricked him into fathering her child. Whatever the case, as the violence of her erratic behavior increases, Amanda knows that she must act to put her life right, or see it destroyed. This new edition of the cult classic features a brand new post-script by the author and an "Are You Possessed?" questionnaire.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
Chapter One
1
IN JANUARY I HAD A proposal due to my boss, Leon Fields, on a new project. We were renovating a clothing store in a strip mall outside the city. Nothing tremendous. I finished the proposal on a Friday morning and dropped it on his desk with a cheerful little note—"Let me know what you think!"—while he was in a meeting with a new client in the conference room. Later that morning Leon threw open his office door with a bang.
"Amanda!" he called. "Come in here."
I rushed to his office. He picked up a handful of papers off his desk and stared at me, his flabby face white with anger.
"What the hell is this?"
"I don't know." It looked like my proposal—same heading, same format. My hands shook. I couldn't imagine what was wrong. Leon handed me the papers and I read the first line: Leon Fields is a cocksucking faggot.
"What is this?" I asked Leon.
He stared at me. "You tell me. You just dropped it on my desk."
My head spun. "What are you talking about? I put the proposal on your desk, not this, the proposal for the new job."
I sifted through the papers on his desk for the proposal I had dropped off. "What is this, a joke?"
"Amanda," he said. "Three people said they saw you go to the printer, print this out, and bring it to my desk."
I felt like I had stepped into a bad dream. There was no logic, no reason anymore.
"Wait," I said to Leon. I ran back to my desk, printed out the proposal, checked it, and brought it back to Leon's office. He had calmed down a little and was sitting in his big leather chair.
I handed it to him. "This is it. This is exactly what I put on your desk this morning."
He looked over the papers and then looked back up at me. "Then where did that come from?" He looked back at the fake proposal on the desk.
"How would I know?" I said. "Let me see it again."
I read the second line: Leon Fields eats shit and likes it.
"Disgusting," I said. "I don't know. Someone playing a trick on you, I guess. Someone thinks it's funny."
"Or playing a trick on you," he said. "Someone replaced your proposal with this. I'm sorry, I thought—" he looked around the office, embarrassed. In the three years I had worked for him I had never heard Leon Fields apologize to anyone, ever.
"It's okay," I told him. "What were you supposed to think?"
We looked at each other.
"I'll look over the proposal," he said. "I'll get back to you soon."
I left his office and went back to my own desk. I hadn't written the fake proposal, but I wished I knew who did. Because it was true; Leon Fields was a cocksucking faggot, and he did eat shit, and I had always suspected that he liked it very much.
2
THAT EVENING I WAS telling my husband, Ed, about the little mystery at work when we heard the tapping for the first time. We were sitting at the dinner table, just finishing a meal of take-out Vietnamese.
Tap-tap.
We looked at each other.
"Did you hear that?"
"I think so."
Again: tap-tap. It came in twos or fours, never just one—tap-tap—and the sound had a drag on it, almost a scratching behind it, like claws on a wood floor.
First Ed stood up, then me. At first, the sound seemed to be coming from the kitchen.
So we walked to the kitchen and bent down to listen under the base of the refrigerator and look under the stove, but then it seemed to be coming from the bathroom. In the bathroom we checked under the sink and behind the shower curtain, and then we determined it was coming from the bedroom. So we walked to the bedroom, and then to the...
About the Author-
Sara Gran is the author of the novels Saturn's Return to New York, Dope, and Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, the first in a detective series. Her work has been published in over a dozen countries and in nearly twice as many magazines, newspapers, and literary journals. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Sara Gran now lives in California.
Reviews-
June 9, 2003 "What we think is impossible happens all the time," observes Amanda, the narrator of Gran's second novel (after 2001's Saturn's Return to New York), providing all the explanation advanced for this effectively understated account of her demonic possession. An industrious young architect with a promising career and seemingly happy marriage, Amanda begins acting uncharacteristically: writing obscene notes to her boss, shoplifting, committing impulsive acts of cruelty, indulging in extramarital affairs—and worse. These episodes, as inexplicable as they are erratic, dovetail with sexually suggestive dreams dominated by an alluring woman who reminds Amanda of her imaginary childhood playmate. Is Amanda losing her grip? Or is Naamah, the dream woman, a demon who has sought since Amanda's infancy to take control of her? Gran keeps the reader as intriguingly uncertain as her heroine, letting Amanda relate her experience in the casual, un-self-conscious voice of someone so increasingly accepting of her outrageous behavior that she almost seems to stand outside it. This ambiguous balancing of the psychological and supernatural creates just the right amount of narrative tension to keep the reader turning pages to see if Amanda is a lost soul on the road to perdition or just a bored yuppie giving into the imp of the perverse. Gran demonstrates that an urbane and subtle approach to ideas more often treated with hysteria and flash can still produce a gripping contemporary tale of terror. (Aug.)Forecast:As the blurbs from Stewart O'Nan and Darin Strauss suggest, this one is aimed, like Gran's sleeper of a first novel, at a mainstream literary audience. Genre horror fans can help give a boost, especially with a World Fantasy or Stoker nomination.
June 15, 2003 In Gran's first novel, Saturn's Return to New York, the protagonist struggled to pull her life together to become an adult on her 29th birthday. In this second effort, quite the opposite happens when the main character faces a gradual but steady loss of control over her body to some sort of demon. Or is she merely delusional? Readers must decide, but it's safe to say that the supernatural is a subject for which Gran has some affinity. From the first tapping in the walls that mark the presence of the "demon" to the shocking conclusion, it's clear that nothing good is going to come of these characters. Amanda, an architect with a small firm, is married to Ed, who works in the financial department of a clothing corporation. They lead a relatively happy life, with the usual ups and downs of married couples, until Amanda's inexplicable behavior begins to alienate her from the people in her life. At less than 200 pages, Come Closer is a quick read-but not one that the reader will quickly forget. Recommended for most public libraries.-Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR
Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2003 Strange noises that come and go; objects that inexplicably appear, then vanish. Such bump-in-the-night shenanigans are horror-story standard fare, but in Gran's gifted hands, these stereotypes fade away like ghosts. In this sparsely constructed and compellingly succinct gem of a novel, Gran's heroine leads a normal life until things suddenly and mystifyingly go wrong. Amanda does hear noises and experience bizarre situations, yet as a vague but tantalizing feeling of unease settles in, Amanda's fear feeds her needs and desires. Gran's premise, that we accept the impossible, for to do otherwise is to foolishly court disaster, informs the subtle tension beneath this deliciously wicked tale. A short book, it is nonetheless long on style, thanks to Gran's talent for quickly and convincingly portraying Amanda's reluctant terror, abject denial, and, finally, resigned acceptance of the malevolent force commandeering her life. Seductively menacing, alluringly sinister, Gran's ominous study of psychological and spiritual suspense heralds a refreshingly sophisticated and literate approach to an often-predictable genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)
Bret Easton Ellis
"What begins as a sly fable about frustrated desire evolves into a genuinely scary novel about possession and insanity. Hypnotic, disturbing, and written with such unerring confidence you believe every word, Come Closer is one of the most precise and graceful pieces of fiction I've read in a long time."
Dallas Morning News
"Ideal for an evening's reading, with a kick that will stay with the reader for days afterward."
Darin Strauss
"Sara Gran has written an intelligent horror story, a literary creepshow that works its magic subtly and well. It's a marvel of restraint and taste, and still it worms its way under your skin and stays there."
Stewart O'Nan
"'What we think is impossible happens all the time.' So claims the beguiling narrator of Come Closer, and after reading this spare and menacing tale, the reader has to agree. Sara Gran has created a sly, satisfying (fast!) novel of one young woman possessed not only by a demon but also by her own secret desires."
Sam Lipsyte
"Come Closer is sharp and strange and, best of all, at the moment of truth it doesn't flinch from its own mad logic."
Kirkus Reviews
"The Yellow Wallpaper meets Rosemary's Baby in a slim, wonderfully eerie novel."
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