The Dead House: A Novel

Longlisted for the 2019 International DUBLIN Literary Award Sometimes the past endures—and sometimes it never lets go.This best-selling debut by an award-winning writer is both an eerie contemporary ghost story and a dread-inducing psychological thriller. Maggie is a successful young artist who has had bad luck with men. Her last put her in the hospital and, after she’s healed physically, left her needing to get out of London to heal mentally and find a place of quiet that will restore her creative spirit. On the rugged west coast of Ireland, perched on a wild cliff side, she spies the shell of a cottage that dates back to Great Famine and decides to buy it. When work on the house is done, she invites her dealer to come for the weekend to celebrate along with a couple of women friends, one of whom will become his wife. On the boozy last night, the other friend pulls out an Ouija board. What sinister thing they summon, once invited, will never go.Ireland is a country haunted by its past. In Billy O'Callaghan's hands, its terrible beauty becomes a force of inescapable horror that reaches far back in time, before the Famine, before Christianity, to a pagan place where nature and superstition are bound in an endless knot.

New York Times Book Review

“. . . Still you keep reading, half-believing that dark forces are stirring, the way you might feel a planchette sliding across a Ouija board. Is it really happening? Or are you convincing yourself there’s more going on here than there really is? Either way, you enjoy the creepy thrill.”

Bustle

"A solid addition to the treasury of campfire ghost stories. . . . The past in The Dead House is 'thick as tar,' as one character puts it, and its evils are content to bide their time, waiting for unwary visitors."―Wall Street Journal <"A contemporary ghost story that will chill you to your bones."

Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Chilling, beautifully written . . . Fans of psychological thrillers with a ghostly undercurrent will be richly rewarded.”

Owen King, author of Double Feature: A Novel and coauthor of Sleeping Beauties

“Billy O’Callaghan’s The Dead House is a perfectly constructed ghost story, an authentically disquieting tale about the old, old cruelty that lives in the land and never dies. It really did scare me.”

John Boyne, award-winning and New York Times–bestselling author

“Atmospheric and unsettling, The Dead House takes the traditions of classic ghost stories and builds on them with a contemporary twist. A terrific read.”

New York Journal of Books

"A subdued chiller . . . There will be more than a few goosebumps raised before the reader finishes this one."

Fictionophile

“A tale of evil, of desperation, of things older than time . . . all the qualities of the very best ghost stories.”

Book Reviews and More by Kathy

"Imaginative . . . O’Callaghan’s descriptive prose brings the Irish countryside vibrantly to life.”

Jeanea's Book Obsession

“Fans of gothic, psychological thrillers will definitely like this one.”

About the Author

Billy O'Callaghan won the Irish Book Award for the title story of his collection The Things We Lose, the Things We Leave Behind and is the author of two other short story collections, In Exile and In Too Deep. His debut novel, The Dead House, was an Irish Times bestseller. He was a finalist for the 2016 COSTA Short Story Award, the Glimmer Train Prize, the Faulkner Wisdom Prize, and the Seán Ó Faoláin Award and has published his stories widely on both sides of the Atlantic. He resides in County Cork, Ireland.

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