The man is initially pleased with his purchase. The price is right and includes everything in the house, including furniture, kitchen equipment, a TV and radio, and a closet filled with clothing. After 30 years of marriage, he’s finally free from his abusive wife. Texts, that he suspects are from her, pop up on his cellphone – “You can’t just hide away from me” – reaffirming his decision to leave her and his two adult children behind.
He received little information about the previous owners of the house, but manages to learn about them from photos, the clothing in the closet, and, most importantly, journals left behind by the husband, Arthur, and his wife, Caroline. He’s particularly concerned about the entries from Caroline who writes with emotion about her husband’s descent into dementia, his abusive behavior towards her, and the isolation she suffers in their house on the moors.
In the closet, he finds Arthur’s clothes are clean and, surprisingly, his size. Since his things are all in storage, he finds nothing wrong with wearing Arthur’s clothes. After all, didn’t the agent say everything in the house is now his? He packs up Caroline’s things in large garbage bags and brings them to the nearby town of Lyke. The first charity shop, won’t take the clothes for lack of space. The next one does. A few days later, however, he opens the closet to find that Caroline’s clothes are still there. How is that possible? He’s sure the house has been locked so the idea of someone coming in to replace her belongings seems unlikely. Did he imagine he brought them to the shop?
Initially the quiet and the isolation are comforting. Now, however, strange things begin to happen, unnerving the man and making it hard for him to sleep. Brand new tennis balls appear out of nowhere. Whenever he puts one ball away, another appears. Wild animals behave strangely. Deer come up to the window and stare inside. Foxes shriek in the night.
He’s turned off his cellphone, but the house’s landline often rings in the night. When he answers, no one is there. The TV and radio have terrible reception, static making it difficult to hear what’s being transmitted. He fears the pylon has something to do with the devices not working. The constant hum from the tower once seemed soothing, now seems menacing.
Reading Arthur’s and Caroline’s diaries makes him intent on learning more about what happened to the couple. In town, he hears one story, that they walked out into a storm one night and froze to death, told to him by Greg, who works at the cafe. Another story has Arthur killing Caroline. And he encounters a young woman, Lucy, who also embellishes some of what he already knows. Arthur and Caroline had a son, Greg, and a daughter, Lucy. Common names, for sure. But it makes him more on edge that he’s somehow tapped into dark forces that might target him next.
This is the first book I’ve read by Joanne Harris and it is certainly a wonderful introduction to this talented writer. Her descriptions of the moors surrounding Kirkhill create the perfect backdrop for this surreal tale. We never learn the man’s name and are left guessing who he actually is and how he came to be staying at this isolated house.
In a release sent with the book, Harris says that she wrote the first draft of Sleepers in the Snow after her father died, following years of ill-health and dementia. “There are certainly ghosts in the book,” she writes. “But who is living and who is dead? And does it matter? The reader will decide.”
Sleepers in the Snow
Joanne Harris
Shutterstock photo by 2000studio
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