Every so often, I read a debut novel that completely floors me. Marcus Kliewer's We Used to Live Here was one such novel. He combined imaginative psychological suspense with a creeping paranoia that made my skin crawl in all the best ways. It wasn't shock or gore that scared me, but the slow chipping away of sanity and security. By the time I finished it, I knew I'd be reading whatever Kliewer came up with next.
That next book is The Caretaker.
Macy Mullins is desperate for a break. After several failed job interviews, and with rent, bills, and the expense of providing for her younger sister all mounting up, she needs money. So when she sees an ad in the paper for a house sitter, she's intrigued. It's only three days, watching the Oregon Coast home of an elderly widow. How hard could it be?
Of course, there's a catch.
The widow explains that her late husband had certain peculiarities, a series of rituals he believed had to be completed each day to keep their home safe. Macy assumes they're nothing more than the ravings of a crazed old man and is about to turn down the bizarre offer. But then the widow mentions the pay. Suddenly, three days of indulging a dead man's superstitions doesn't sound so bad.
Macy takes the job, fully expecting to humor the widow for a few days, collect her money, and move on. It doesn't take long for her to realize that the old man's rituals may not have been so crazy after all. Something is very wrong with this house, and what seemed like an easy way to make some quick cash is about to become three of the longest days of her life.
Marcus Kliewer has a knack for placing complicated characters into situations that test their mental and physical fortitude. That was the case with his debut, and it's certainly the case with The Caretaker. The entire story essentially takes place in this single house, with Macy grappling with the increasingly strange things happening all around her. We're never quite sure what's real and what's imagined, and that uncertainty makes the possibilities all the more unsettling.
Kliewer also deals with some pretty heavy topics. Grief. Regret. Suicide. They give the novel a weight that makes you wonder whether a happy ending is even possible. The deeper Macy gets into this house and everything happening inside of it, the harder it becomes to imagine how she could possibly come out of the experience unscathed.
And while I'm still in awe of Kliewer's ability to create compelling characters and place them in deeply unsettling situations, I'll admit that The Caretaker grew a bit repetitive for me. After a fantastic opening, the novel settles into a familiar pattern. Macy attempts a rite, something goes wrong, she deals with the consequences, and then it's on to the next one. After a while, I started to know what kind of thing was coming next, even if I didn't know exactly how it would play out.
Still, Kliewer knows how to grab my attention and shake me to my core. The ending of this one did that in spades. And so, I'm decidedly mixed on The Caretaker. There's a lot here that I admire, and Kliewer continues to prove himself a writer I'll happily follow wherever he goes next. This one just didn't work for me quite as well as We Used to Live Here.
For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.
(2026, 73)
This does sound interesting, and I think some weight is great in a book.
ReplyDeleteIt is an interesting premise, but I'm kind of on the fence about this one. I can't decide if it's one I would like, or one I would find frustrating. Did you at least like the way it ended?
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