- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (Aug 4 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312385846
- ISBN-13: 978-0312385842
- Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 16.7 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 522 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#382,444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #83 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Occult > Ghosts & Haunted Houses
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Advance Praise for The Birthing House
“A blend of supernatural horror and psychological thriller, Ransom’s impressive debut chronicles a couple’s descent into madness after they purchase a 140-year-old Victorian house in rural Wisconsin . . . this addictively readable ghost story will keep readers up all night, with the lights on, of course.” —Publishers Weekly
“As much about the terrors of humankind as it is about the supernatural, this is an exceptional debut . . . Ransom’s style mimics that of the early Stephen King and Dan Simmons’s horror fiction.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Adjustable-rate mortgages are frightening indeed, but what about the underlying property? This debut novel by Christopher Ransom gives a new spin to the venerable haunted-house story. . . . Ransom has a distinctive narrative voice, and a Stephen King-like gift for the dreadful lurking behind the everyday. . . . The novel builds to a gripping climax that will make you think twice, maybe three times, about making an offer on that beautiful old fixer-upper.”—SmartMoney magazine
“A biting and well-written novel… The kind of genuinely scary story that makes little hairs stand up on the back of your neck… This is a rare thing: a ghost story with class. Read it.”—Peter Blauner, author of the New York Times bestseller Slipping Into Darkness
“The birth of an exciting new voice in dark fiction… The Birthing House is a book that will leave you holding your breath.”—Scott Nicholson, Bram Stoker Award finalist, author of They Hunger
“Either I don’t know my horror stories (and I do know my horror stories) or Christopher Ransom’s The Birthing House was so all-out scary that it kept me up until the wee hours in a way few novels have since Carrie went to the prom…. This book is killer.” —Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean
“The Birthing House is as scary as they come…. It’s quite simply a terrific novel.” —Marcus Sakey, author of The Blade Itself
“Terrifying and beautiful. I couldn’t put The Birthing House down.” —Sara Gran, author of Dope
“A damn creepy, very original ghost story.” —Jack Ketchum, Bram Stoker Award winner, author of The Lost
“A stunning debut—swaddling the reader in dread from the very first sentence, and spiraling into a heart-stopping climax.”—Michael Marshall, New York Times bestselling author of The Straw Men
“Christopher Ransom’s debut is so disturbing at times that it will truly terrify readers, quite an accomplishment for a debut, in my opinion. (The Birthing House brings to mind very early John Saul.) Ransom shows great promise in the horror genre.”—BookBitch.com
“Once in a long while, the claim of a ‘stunning debut novel’ is actually deserved. Christopher Ransom's The Birthing House is one of those rarities. Not a traditional mystery -- no cops-and-villains stuff, nary a PI to be found. Nor a straight-up horror story, haunted-house or otherwise. But, merging all of these, thriller it most assuredly is. And if little shudders aren’t tap-dancing your spine about 20 pages into this thing you should lay off the Prozac. . . . Infectiously terrifying (not least because Ransom does not bludgeon you with it), this tale could make you re-examine your dreams, memories, marriage, kids, neighbours, even your dog. And stop your breath cold.”—Winnipeg Free Press
Book Description
It was expecting them.
Conrad and Joanna Harrison, a young couple from Los Angeles, attempt to save their marriage by leaving the pressures of the city to start anew in a quiet, rural setting. They buy a Victorian mansion that once served as a haven for unwed mothers, called a birthing house. One day when Joanna is away, the previous owner visits Conrad to bequeath a vital piece of the house’s historic heritage, a photo album that he claims “belongs to the house.” Thumbing through the old, sepia-colored photographs of midwives and fearful, unhappily pregnant girls in their starched, nineteenth-century dresses, Conrad is suddenly chilled to the bone: staring back at him with a countenance of hatred and rage is the image of his own wife….
Thus begins a story of possession, sexual obsession, and, ultimately, murder, as a centuries-old crime is reenacted in the present, turning Conrad and Joanna’s American dream into a relentless nightmare.
An extraordinary marriage of supernatural thrills and exquisite psychological suspense, The Birthing House marks the debut of a writer whose first novel is a terrifying tour de force.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
lust, lust, lust and then...phychological horror story,
By
This review is from: The Birthing House (Hardcover)
Having given this book 1 star you can imagine I didn't like it very much. There's a lot of description of lust, which only gets annoying in the story. Then it's about mentally sick people and to top it all off the author throws incest at the end. I couldn't wait to be done with this piece of garbage.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good horror, but has quite a few pitfalls.,
By
This review is from: The Birthing House (Hardcover)
Oh my. Where to start. There were plenty of parts where the hair on the back of my neck stood to one end. It hit me by surprise too. (If any of you have read it, remember the popsicle doll part? argh!) I had the misfortune of reading that part at night right before bedtime. So, there is plenty of horror and suspense. The thing is, although the horror parts are very well written and enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, the storyline and characters don't really give the story substance or depth.I didn't really like Conrad, or Joanna. Conrad hasn't grown up yet and still acts like an 18 year old teenager who still on raging hormone syndrome. Joanna doesn't help much with things either as she appears to be whiny, selfish, and acts like a B-movie diva. Despite the book's great horror moments, Conrad ruins it all with his Lolita moments with Nadia, his constant thoughts about not getting any "action", and his immaturity just has no boundaries. It can be quite eye rolling and very tedious. What also bugs me, are some moments where things are mentioned, and then are just forgotten. Like the snakes Conrad has as a hobby. One of them undergoes a miraculous conception.....and....that's it. Then you have that strange family that used to live in the house before Conrad. They had children - not very normal children. Bad things had happened to them while in that house. Nadia used to babysit the kids. Then they moved out. Hrm. It's these kinds of details that needed explaining to make the plot and story more enjoyable and thus, more comprehensible. Now here's the part that really bugged me. There was one single chapter dedicated to how he and and old ex girlfriend spent the night together making love. It was descriptive. It was long. It was very detailed. At that point I thought to myself "Why would you write a chapter all about that, and why should I care?" I actually skipped ahead. I found it unnecessary and didn't add anything to the story. So they had sex. Whatever. If I wanted detail and the dirt I'd get myself an erotic novel. I believe it's not needed here. The ending was all right. It was something I did rather expect out of a horror novel. Although it did leave me feeling rather as if there should have been a lot more to it. Nevertheless it did succeed in getting me scared in certain parts of the book. It was too bad it fell short in other areas, and the chapter I mentioned above just nearly killed the book for me. Overall, if you don't mind these shortfalls and just want to read it for the thrills, go right on ahead. The horror moments of the book do deserve credit.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
2.7 out of 5 stars (111 customer reviews) 29 of 33 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
It's scary how awful this is!,
By PghYinzer "more of myself after winter" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Birthing House (Hardcover)
I'm a social history dork. I also love old houses. AND I love anything medical, especially anything having to do with pregnancy and birth. I thought that this book was going to combine all of those loves and wrap them up into the sort of horror story that you can't put down at night, partly because you keep wanting to know what happens next, and partly because you don't want to turn out the lights. You know those sorts of scary books that leave you as a grown adult afraid to get out of bed at night to go to the bathroom? That's what I was hoping for.I didn't get it. There's just not enough back story on the birthing house, for starters. Conrad moves in and the previous owner hands him a scrap book of the house. Conrad spots a picture that looks like his wife - and throws the whole book in the fire. The history dork in me recoiled in horror. That was probably the scariest part in the book for me. We have an old house, built in the 20s. Lots of people buy old houses and find interesting stuff in them. We didn't find a whole lot. Some old keys, some old wall paper. Nothing great. This guys gets an entire album of pictures and clippings - the history of his house handed to him on a silver platter - he freaks out and burns it. Why would he not verify who this woman is? Why would he not research the house? This could have gone somewhere - but it didn't. Then the story tells you a little bit about weird things that happen to those previous owners - but not enough to really understand anything. Yes, their kids are all deformed. There's references to no one being able to keep track of how many kids there were. WHAT HAPPENED??? It could have been so interesting! What you do get is a lot of slimy sex scenes, neighbors who don't have a clue, characters you can't keep straight, and a virgin snake birth that doesn't go anywhere. I could not figure out who was going crazy, what was really happening, who was the good guy, who was the bad guy. Someone else mentioned, WHY was he drinking so much iced tea?? Was there a point? What happened to the dead baby in the crib??? Why was all the history of Alma and the doctor and the birthing house crammed in in the last few pages? By then I was so sick of this book I just blew through it to be done, but even reading slowly, I don't think I would have had any idea what really went on. I'm comforted to see so many others who feel they have no idea what went on. I know a little confusion is what builds a good horror story, but in the end it's supposed to all fall together. This did not fall together for me. The biggest mystery for me ended up being, am I getting dumber as I get older, or was this book just really bad? I think it was the book! This book just left me puzzled. It seemed like it had such potential - it looked like it was written for ME. Since it seems people can't help but crack puns based on the title, I'll give you one of my own - this book was a false positive. 32 of 41 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
THERE'S ALWAYS VANILLA,
By Thomas E. O'Sullivan - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Birthing House (Hardcover)
Pre-release customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program
In every reviewer's repertoire there is always one word they hold in reserve, like saving one bullet in your gun in case you happen to find yourself surrounded by a horde of ravenous zombies, it's a killing word, it's a word that sums up their true feelings on a subject and for me that word is: DUMBFOUNDED. I was literally dumbfounded by THE BIRTHING HOUSE. A complete mish-mash rip that by the close of CHAPTER TWO had me questioning the sanity of both the author and the publisher - just what were they thinking?THE BIRTHING HOUSE tells the tried and true story of a house "haunted" by the ghosts and gimmicks of classic horror tales and the want of modern writers to take what used to be left best read between the lines and shove it in your face...sex. From the classic interpretation to the internet's excesses it seemed Ransom, like his hero, Conrad Harrison, has no real self control, or will or ability to edit himself - he's merely a cork on water, rising and falling with the swells, but never taking on water, never truly going beneath the surface. He's simply follows Ransom's futile splashing of prose to get him to move, but it never works. Ransom is hopelessly locked into a plot that feels like he's following the floor plan of a carnival spook house, that again, by the end of CHAPTER TWO, you'll realize that you've already read this a dozen times before. And the house is not just haunted, it's "out, loud and proud" haunted (two snaps). Conrad isn't in the house for more than a moment before he's already being sucked into the house's neatly ordered vortex of evil. And the funny things is...he knows it, right from the start. Again and again when something isn't right he puts the blame squarely on the house and he's right. It is the house. Get out. But Conrad stays, dragging his often gone, cheating wife with him in hopes of finding some peace and starting a family. And it's from here that Ransom moves his plot between the slow boil of a watched pot, to popping a Hot Pocket in the microwave - it's as if he found in the back of his closet a game of CHUTES & LADDERS as imagined by RAMSEY CAMPBELL and CLIVE BARKER. One moment Ransom is dragging it out, when there appears, like a hound on your doorstep with a dead bird in its mouth, a scene of horror that feels exactly like a commercial break...it's not that it matters, it's just what pays the bills. It's what you expect and long before you finish THE BIRTHING HOUSE you'll find yourself peeking ahead, fast forwarding through the chop, seeing the end clearly before you get there and then when getting there, feeling cheated. In the end, THE BIRTHING HOUSE is the kind of story you write in college, for a grade, for a demanding, but narrow minded teacher who's idea of prose feels like a drawn out text message mixed with poetry (Ransom channels his inner Tolkien towards the end, laying down the italics to help clear up the story) with a plot designed to please the front row only. Avoid. 16 of 20 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wow. What A Disappointment.,
By Brett Benner - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Birthing House (Hardcover)
Pre-release customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program
The only reason I'm giving this book one star is that despite the wheels falling off the cart in the second half of the book, I think Ransom has great potential as a writer. It starts with a great premise: A young couple having marital problems moves from the sprawl of Los Angeles to a remote home in Wisconsin, that holds it's own dark and twisted secrets. The books rests somewhere between 'The Amityville Horror' and 'The Shining' , but never really reaches either in terms of a horror benchmark. I wanted to get scared, was waiting to get scared, but never really was. To me, this is a tepid ghost story with some graphic sex, and a ridiculous final thirty pages that will have you wondering not only what just happened, by why you even bothered.
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