"Alex Lane stays on alone in his university's hall of residence after the other students take off for the holidays. He's broke. He's lonely. He's a bit freaked out by a sinister pale boy who seems to be the only other student left on campus. He can't go home because of an unspecified family trauma involving what he alludes to only as The Last Day and The Annihilator."
"He's offered holiday work by the university, as one of a team of students clearing out an old asylum in a dismal, marshy area of the countryside nearby, ahead of its being turned into a new halls of residence. The asylum is called Marshlands. And next door to it stands a decrepit gothic mansion called Solace House."
"Gothic always tries too hard. Here, perhaps, is a self-deprecating wink in a novel full of them—a novel that throws the (ancient, sinister, rusted taps coughing a disquieting red-brown liquid) kitchen sink at the problem of writing a good old-fashioned piece of gothic-flavoured weird fiction."
Alex Lane, a broke and lonely university student, stays behind during summer break due to unspecified family trauma. He accepts holiday work clearing out an old asylum called Marshlands in the countryside, alongside fellow students including the mysterious pale boy Adam. The group discovers the decrepit gothic mansion Solace House standing adjacent to the asylum. As the students—a diverse cast including a Christian, a goth, and various 1990s archetypes—work together smoking joints and socializing, strange and unsettling events begin to unfold. The narrative employs self-deprecating humor about gothic conventions while building supernatural tension, with time-related anomalies complicating the straightforward summer setting.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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