By: Josh Malerman
*This post contains spoilers for Incidents Around the House
When one thing leaves your house or heart, it makes room for another to take its place. This is why it’s unwise to make solid statues inside. A statue takes up space without moving, without flowing, without growing.
Incidents Around the House
Overview:
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”
Incidents Around the House
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
But Other Mommy needs an answer.
I am very rarely ever scared while reading a book. I can’t tell you the last time that a book had me making faces or pausing to think about what I just read. Incidents Around the House had moments where I was genuinely frightened.
The conversation Bela has with her parents after they see Other Mommy for themselves was chilling. Bela is just matter of fact answering their questions and they are trying to remain calm but absolutely terrified.
I also cannot forget to mention reading the phrase “can I go into your heart” for the first time. Then every time someone is revealed to be Other Mommy and she asks the question again your heart sinks that Bela hasn’t escaped it.
All of this happens at the beginning of the story. Arguably a perfect first half. It gets a little less good after the halfway point. The entire last act fell a little short for me and I wish there was a more interesting way to get to where we needed to be.
This could have been solved by the revelation of Other Mommy being postponed till later in the story. I’ve heard people talking about how great it is that the parents can see Other Mommy and believe the child right away. I do like this but think it takes away from Bela’s experiences and makes the story more about her parents relationship.
So let’s talk about what this book could be representing other than a story of a demon trying to posses a child.
It seems to me like Other Mommy is a representation of Ursula’s need to be free from motherhood. I don’t think that she would have appeared had Ursula not been having her affair and leaving her family all the time. Other Mommy feeds off of the trauma. Her goal to to go inside Bela’s heart but I think is is ultimately to send Bela away so she can live the life she wants.
“I wanna feel, Bela. I wanna eat good food and drink good drink and sleep good sleep.”
She doesn’t want to replace Bela’s mom, she wants to a redo of life without a child. She doesn’t want to possess Bela she wants to send her away.
Had Ursula truly came to the realization that she loved her family and wanted to put them above all, I think Other Mommy would have left. However, she was never fully in. She even left her family during all of this so that she could go to her boyfriend’s house. Choosing to leaving her daughter who has a literal demon after her.
Ursula admits to Bela that Russ is not her father and that she was married before. She cheated on her husband with many people and believed that Russ was the father until a DNA test proved otherwise. Russ still wanted to be with Ursula and raise the baby as his own. For a while Ursula thought she had what she wanted but couldn’t stop looking for more.
Ultimately, this leads to the death of her parents and her grandmother. At the end Bela has nothing left so she lets Other Mommy into her heart.
Overall,
I did really enjoy this book and the first half is super strong. It makes up for the less than successful second half of the story. It has been a while since I needed a palate cleanser after reading a book before I could go to sleep.
I just wish that the author was able to keep the tension at the height that he had at the beginning. Had Other Mommy been discovered to be real by the adults a little later in the story it could have been a stronger story.
Rating: 4/5 stars
