The Elementals
Michael McDowell
219 pages - 1981 - fiction, horror
May 17th, 2024 — May 20th, 2024
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Haunting of Hill House television show, directed by Mike Flanagan, is, quite possibly, my favorite piece of art ever created. I think it is nearly perfect. It explores family dynamics in a way that many are afraid to, and it involves such a fascinating exploration of the world beyond the veil.
I’ve always been a big fan of ghost stories. Halloween is my favorite holiday. I used to listen to Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour Halloween special with my dad on repeat. I have three Friday the 13th tattoos and counting. Beetlejuice is one of my favorite movies, and Michael McDowell wrote the screenplay, so I knew I was in for a treat when I started reading this book.
I think there is something beautiful in ghost stories. There’s a sense of persistence. Nell’s final monologue in Hill House never fails to make me break down into a puddle. Her siblings get a chance to apologize to her—something that we have seen she has wished for—and she forgives them before they can even get the words out. She ends her speech saying, “I loved you completely. And you loved me the same, that’s all. The rest is confetti.” I wrote that last sentence on my graduation cap last year.
The Elementals starts with a funeral. Even before you start reading the book, there is a sense of eeriness. Stephen King’s pull quote was positioned on the cover, above the title, on my copy of the book, which definitely lends a certain air. I went in expecting a fun ghost story, and I got it. But I also got so much more.
I have written before about reading the right book at the right time. This one was undoubtedly a case of that occurring once more. I started this book on the day we buried my grandmother’s ashes. It was the first time my mother’s side of the family was (nearly) all together in god knows how many years. The day after was the first celebration of life. I finished the book on the plane ride home after all the laughter and tears.
The book is about the aftermath of a family matriarch’s death. It is about a family that does not see eye to eye about many things, but still ends up together despite it all. I felt that the love the family members all had for each other, while explicitly unspoken—sometimes completely contradicted—was hauntingly clear. When one of them has something to say, the others listen. I thought it was beautiful.
Summary (Spoilers!)
Marian Savage is dead, and the family gathers for her funeral. They mostly gather to make sure that she really is dead; her two children, Sister Mary-Scot and Dauphin, drive a dagger into her heart to insure that she is truly dead. Surprisingly, this is an issue they’ve had to face before.
The family tree is a bit complicated. The Savages are a wealthy family from Alabama who are the heirs to a fertilizer fortune. Dauphin married Leigh McCray, whose mother, Big Barbara McCray, was Marian’s best friend. Leigh’s brother, Luker, has always been the odd one out; he is the only one who has moved away from Alabama, choosing to raise his daughter India in New York City. Along with the family is Odessa, the Savage’s servant, who has been with them for over thirty-five years.
After the funeral, the family heads to Beldame, a pseudo-island where there are three family homes. One is the McCray house, the other is the Savage house, and the third is slowly being engulfed by sand.
We mostly hear India and Luker’s story, with India being the one we follow the closest. By the end of the book, it becomes clear why, but at first she is just a clueless young girl who does not know the intricacies of her strange southern family. She asks her father about the third house, saying that she feels like it’s odd, and he responds with thinly-veiled fear and apprehension. Naturally, being twelve years old, she goes to explore the house and take some photos. (Definitely very Lydia Deetz.)
Odessa helps India take some photos, but she warns her quite extensively. When India goes inside the third house, she is grabbed by a spectral hand that leaves bruises around her ankle. Even with her physical evidence, the family brushes it off, trying to sweep it away like the incessant sand covering nearly every surface. They do not want to talk about the third house, and they do not want India going back.
We learn that Marian’s oldest son disappeared under mysterious circumstances, his red and orange sailboat vanishing from Beldame one night. Odessa’s daughter also disappeared, with most believing that she had drowned, since the currents can be quite strong. On learning about Odessa’s daughter, India is chilled, as she had seen a young girl rise up out of the encroaching sand, smiling a wide sand-filled smile, with black eyes and white pupils.
The story goes from family lore to present hauntings. Odessa tries some tricks that she had performed previously, reading from Bibles and having the family eat seeds to try to keep the spirits at bay. It doesn’t work, though, and they seem to be getting bolder, luring others into the house to feed on them.
Big Barbara, meanwhile, is an alcoholic, and a big reason for the family’s trip is so they can cut her off from here supply and get her sobered up. Her husband, Lawton, is running for Congress, and does not want to be married to an out-of-control alcoholic. She tells him that she’s cleaning up her act, and for a bit, she really is, remaining sober. But he suddenly drops the prospect of divorce on her, sending her spiraling. She turns back to the drink. The family heads back into town one day to gather more supplies and to celebrate the Fourth of July.
Taking advantage of the empty homes, Lawton decides to burn them all down. There is an oil company that wants to take advantage of the land on which the three houses are built, and Lawton wants to divorce Barbara so he can have control of the McCray’s house, at the very least. But when she does not simply agree, he has to take matters into his own hands. He brings gas cannisters to Beldame, sets up an alibi for himself, and begins with the third house. Naturally, the house fights back. (Very Hill House—I wonder if Flanagan was inspired!)
Lawton breaks his leg and his truck is pulled into the water during a huge storm that rolls in. The family returns to Beldame the next day and notices the truck, but do not realize that Lawton is hurt. I wondered what they would have done if they did; none of them seemed to like Lawton very much, even though Barbara definitely was out of control. Either way, though, they only find him after he’s been killed.
Odessa and India go into the house together to try to control what Luker calls The Elementals, which are the (ghosts? Spirits? There’s no real concise word for them) that are haunting the third house and have started to spread into the other two like the sand dunes. The other houses are filling with sand, which they notice when one person takes a sip of their coffee and realizes that the sugar is not sugar, but sand. India, only twelve, follows Odessa’s lead until they’re separated. Before that, Odessa begs India to eat her eyes should the older woman also succumb to the house.
Sure enough, India reunites with Odessa as she’s being dragged under the sand dune, already dead, and clutching her own eyes in her hands, having gouged them out as the Elementals were killing her. India consumes them and is given the gift of sight that Odessa had possessed. She starts working overtime, fighting back against the monsters and trying to get her family out before more die.
Dauphin’s neck is sliced open during the scuffle with a shard of window glass; that makes the total body count three—Lawton, Odessa, and Dauphin. Thankfully, though, the rest of the family is able to escape from the sinking houses and leave the island right as the tide is ebbing, allowing them land on which to drive away.
The family goes through three funerals in three days. We learn that Leigh McCray has given birth to twins, whom she named Dauphin and Darnley, after the two deceased Savage brothers. India, though, refuses to be in the same room as the babies; her gift of sight tells her that there’s something off about them.
A Family Tree
I have one main gripe with this book, and it’s the characterization of Odessa. She is often referred to as “the black woman”, rarely by name, and is only given personality through her cryptic messages meant to help the rest of the family. It could be said that it was written in a different time, but it’s always disappointing to see it so blatant. I feel that, should this book be rewritten or adapted, there are so many ways to make Odessa a well-rounded character instead of essentially a prop.
But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was difficult at first to keep straight all the family members and their relations to one another, but they were unique in their voices and characters from the start. On one level, the characters were relatively shallow, each having one main character trait—Barbara is an alcoholic, Sister Mary-Scot is a nun, Luker is a black sheep. But we learn much more about their relationships, which is where they really get to shine.
The descriptions of the creatures and all the frights were also shocking. I think horror books have a much tougher job; with a horror movie, it can be easy to create an image that shocks or scares. With a book, frightening descriptions are contingent on both the imagination of the reader and the craftsmanship of the author. I have always felt that my imagination, at least in terms of visualization while I’m reading, has never been the strongest; still, I felt a chill down my spine at the descriptions of the creatures’ eyes and forms, especially the baby creature. There was just enough detail to make it bone-chilling, and yet he leaves so much up to the imagination that I’m a little afraid to look out my dark bedroom window right now.
I know a reason I enjoyed the book so thoroughly was its similarities to Flanagan’s Hill House. Both are stories about a rather broken family convening in a space to mourn and finding more than they bargained for. It’s about old secrets coming to light and reconciliations. There is even the idea of burning down a house, but the creatures within the house fighting back. Both stories are still unique, but complement each other in a wonderful way. I know this book will change how I view Hill House the next time around (rewatch number 21, I think).
If you’re a fan of horror, of Halloween, of Beetlejuice, or even just of familial stories, this book is well worth the read. I have never read a McDowell work before this, but I will be adding more to my list. He is an excellent writer. The book made me very grateful to have a relatively normal family—and my grandmother was a clown, so that’s saying something.
Total pages read so far, 2024: 10,028
Total books read so far, 2024: 27
Next book: Of Things Gone Astray by Janina Matthewson