So it’s a book about a man who can’t overcome his grief and the consequences of bringing back what is and should stay gone. Pretty straightforward right? I thought he’d simply set fire to Jud’s house with all the corpses in it and die a tragic but predictable death after realizing what he had done. But, holy fuck, he didn’t. I didn’t think he would go up that hill again and bury his wife too. And the epilogue sealed the deal for me… I imagined it all too vividly: Louis, sitting and placing cards on a table in a dead silent room, his back turned to us. Then come the footsteps, and along with Rachel our field of view slowly creeps towards him, and then Rachel stops and her fingers fall gently on his shoulder, and she whispers, “darling”. Creepy and sad as hell.
Louis’s actions were in part driven by his grief and in part by the “Power” in the cemetery. He had a desire and was desperate. So the Power cleared and laid the path out for him. This makes me think of all the troubled people in the world stricken with grief or wrath or vindictiveness and the lengths they’d go- the things they’d do if only they had the means like what Louis had.
The story is essentially an elaborate example of why you should be careful what you wish for and of how sometimes you ought to just be grateful for the things you *don’t* have. Some things the world is better off without- like a cemetery that can resurrect the dead, for example.
by pnkzkt