Softspoken

“Shepard takes ordinary, grubby people and makes them interesting sounding boards for bigger ideas concerning morality, ethics and personal redemption.” – Publishers Weekly “Shepard manipulates genre elements in order to transcend genre expectations.” – The New York Review of Books A chilling and mysterious voice becomes audible to Sanie shortly after she and her husband Jackson move into the decaying antebellum mansion that is the Bullard ancestral home in rural South Carolina. At first, she wonders if the voice might be a prank played by Jackson's peyote-popping brother Will or his equally off-kilter sister Louise. But soon Sanie discovers that the ghostly voice is merely a single piece in the decadent, baroque puzzle that comprises the Bullard family history rank with sensuality, violence, repression and madness.

From Publishers Weekly

In this sultry contemporary Southern gothic from Shepard (Trujillo), Sanie Bullard, a 28-year-old frustrated writer, is stuck in a stultifying marriage and husband Jackson's dilapidated antebellum family mansion in South Carolina, where the couple has returned so he can study for his bar exams in peace. His brother, Will, is addled with peyote as well as the family's weirdness; sister Louise is stranger still. Sanie, at loose ends in the "eminently hauntable" family home, hears voices. Unafraid of the ghostly voices, Sanie sees the house—and the Bullards—not as monstrous but as a "frail, musty puzzle she wants to solve." However, the puzzle is stranger and far darker than Sanie imagines. This memorable short novel careens through the mundane realities of a Southern small town, from bizarre revelations of decadent family history and strange supernatural theory to a violent and unexpected conclusion.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Hugo and Nebula Award winner Lucius Shepard reveals himself as the master of the ghost story in Softspoken, a short novel packed with plenty of atmosphere and big scares. (Shepard's best work to date has been his novellas, which explains the success of such a compressed novel.) Critics favorably compare Softspoken to The Haunting of Hill House, Ghost Story, and Bag of Bones, among other horror classics, and to the work of Tim Powers and James Blaylock, who have similarly crossed over. They also praise Shepard's ability to balance a conventional southern gothic—including convincing minor characters—with the tautness of a well-paced psychological thriller.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Reviews

News