By ROBERT MARASCO (Delacorte Press; 1973)
Another haunted house novel from the 1970s and 80s that I find overrated (THE BLACK HOUSE, THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR and THE WELL are among the others). BURNT OFFERINGS, the debut novel by the late Robert Marasco (1936-1998), has garnered a great deal of praise from Stephen King (who gushed about it at some length in HORROR: 100 BEST BOOKS) and other horror luminaries, and it certainly has some good things. Ultimately, though, BURNT OFFERINGS proves to me that the haunted house model was nailed by Shirley Jackson back in 1959, and has yet to be bettered.
The protagonists are the Queens based couple Marian and Ben Rolfe, their son David and Ben’s aunt Elizabeth, who, fed up with urban living, decide to spend a summer in a luxurious country house owned by the creepy Roz Allardyce and her brother Arnold. The rental agreement contains quite a few examples of what should be considered red flags, including a price tag that seems impossibly low and the fact that Roz and Arnold’s 85-year-old mother has to remain in her room during the Rolf’s stay, and have her meals left outside the door.
Ben and Marian go through with the rental and, as any haunted house aficionado can predict, strangeness quickly makes itself apparent. The Allardyces fail to turn up on the Rolfes’ first day in the house, instead leaving keys and relevant phone numbers (but not their own). As their time in the house stretches on the protagonists find themselves undergoing alarming personality changes, with Ben becoming abrupt and violent with his son and Marian growing increasingly fastidious about putting the house in order—specifically, she finds herself trying to restore it to an earlier (much earlier) time period.
Worst of all, Marian, who’s taken it upon herself to leave Mama Allardyce’s meals outside her door, develops an all-consuming obsession with the old woman, who never emerges from her cocoon. Eventually Marian decides to finally breach Mama Allardyce’s sanctum in a conclusion that is, frankly, disappointing.
The novel is well written, certainly, and likely seemed far more impacting in 1973 than it does now. Part of the problem is that it’s been widely imitated (THE SHINING bears its unmistakable influence), which lessens the charge. Again, though, that’s only part of the major problem afflicting BURNT OFFERINGS, with another part being that the narrative is constructed around a mystery whose solution, revealed in the final pages, is none-too-invigorating.
Were this a movie (and BURNT OFFERINGS was indeed made into a 1976 feature that’s about equal to the book quality-wise) the conclusion would be accused of substituting special effects pyrotechnics for dramatic progression. The same is true of Marasco’s prose, which describes “the terrible blaze of light whitening everything” and how “she felt herself screaming at it, screaming at the vastness, the magnitude of the power being released on her,” descriptions that are full of sound and fury but signify very little.