The Animals At Lockwood Manor

January 1, 2020
Healey looks back fondly at the tradition of spooky English country-house fiction while adding a few twists of her own. With more than a few nods to Jane Eyre and Rebecca, this debut novel throws an awkward but stalwart heroine into a decaying house with history and mystery to spare. Friendless Hetty Cartright has found a home working among the stuffed specimens at a major natural history museum in London. When, in 1939, the museum decides to farm out its collection to houses in the countryside in order to avoid their destruction in the anticipated bombing of the city, Hetty is assigned to guard the stuffed mammals in their temporary home at Lockwood Manor. The decaying manor, ruled by the imperious and lascivious Lord Lockwood, has "four floors, six flights of stairs, and ninety-two rooms," some with resident ghosts, and Hetty soon has her hands full attempting to protect the animals, some of which disappear and many of which she finds in disconcerting new spots. Scorned by the household staff, Hetty finds an ally in Lord Lockwood's sensitive, unstable daughter, Lucy, who narrates the portions of the novel that Hetty doesn't. As the two become closer and face their individual fears and insecurities, the peril of the house amps up, culminating in a disastrous party. While Healey sometimes lays on the atmospheric menace with a heavy hand, especially considering how light on action the novel actually is, and though she ties up her plot threads in a few hasty pages, her depictions of the historical period and of the dread of anticipating full-scale war are vivid. The animals, frozen in place and unable to defend themselves either against the encroaching Germans or the more immediate dangers of the live animals and insects that want to devour them, mirror the plight of the women caught in Lockwood Manor. A moody exploration of bleak wartime Britain.

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January 13, 2020
Healey animates the dusty halls of an old English manor house during Hitler’s bombing blitz in her impassioned if mannered debut. Assigned to safeguard a London museum’s taxidermied specimens during the Luftwaffe bombing campaign, assistant curator Hetty Cartwright accompanies the collection to the countryside. Lockwood Manor, home of Lord Lockwood, aka the major, though, is an ominous refuge. The house’s occupants include the major’s frail, grown daughter Lucy, whom he suggests should “not to be troubled with too many difficulties or dramas,” and their few remaining servants, and Healey conjures an eerie vibe with empty rooms and bricked-up dead end passageways. Each night, the museum’s animals seem to move on their own, shifting from rooms and cabinets, even disappearing. As Hetty and Lucy become close, Lucy shares stories about her mother’s descent into madness, evoking the Victorian theme of the madwoman in the attic and revealing the truth behind her unhealthy state. The story’s satisfying conclusion redeems the creaky period prose (“I cared not a jot”). This will be of interest for fans of revisionist gothic narratives in the vein of Sarah Perry’s Melmoth.

February 1, 2020
With the enlistment of England's men during WWII, Hetty Cartwright, 30 and ungainly, was granted an unprecedented opportunity. Securing the directorship of a London natural history museum's mammal collection, she oversees its transfer to a location far from German bombing. Yet Lockwood Manor proves anything but safe. It's inhabited by harsh, dismissive Major Lockwood, echoes of his recently deceased wife, and his beautiful, unstable daughter, to whom Hetty is instantly attracted. Danger to the collection is ever-present, from mysterious disappearances to leaking pipes to rowdy partygoers. While Healey (The Beantown Girls, 2019) stretches the plot to the snapping point, her gothic novel ticks the most important box: eerie atmosphere. Although some of the main players in the mammal collection aren't actually mammals, namely the hummingbirds, Healey excels at creating disquiet through descriptions of crushed feathers, disintegrating fur, teeth shining in the half-light, and the living creatures that prey upon the taxidermied animals: mice gnawing, insects scrabbling in sawdust innards. Billed for fans of Kate Morton, Healey's novel will offer a satisfying scratch for those with an itch for a gothic read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2019

Drawing comparison to works by Sarah Perry and Kate Morton, this 1939-set debut novel takes us to Lockwood Manor, which houses a natural history collection sent from London for safekeeping. Thirtyish Hetty Cartwright has been ushered in to tend the collection, a task made harder by the presence of the troubled Lockwood family daughter. Then the animals in the exhibit appear to move. Healey was short-listed for Bristol, Costa, and Commonwealth short story honors.

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March 1, 2020

DEBUT In 1939 England, owing to the bombings in London, Hetty Cartwright is sent to isolated Lockwood Manor in the English countryside with a collection of taxidermied mammals from a natural history museum. She is to live at the house and make sure no harm comes to the collection. The owner of the manor, Major Lockwood, is openly hostile and offensive, while his daughter Lucy suffers from terrible nightmares and can be heard screaming in the night. Even the few remaining servants do not want a stranger disrupting their routines. Hetty soon realizes that protecting the collection will not be easy. Specimens are moved during the night, some disappear, and others are vandalized. A growing friendship between Lucy and Hetty is threatened by long-held secrets that, if revealed, will sever the thread that holds the household together. Alternating chapters told from Lucy's point of view supply the backstory of this gothic tale of hauntings, secrets, and madness--a creative device that adds tension and suspense. Atmospheric details of the manor make it a central character. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Lauren A. Forry, Sarah Perry, and gothic suspense. [See Prepub Alert, 9/16/19.]--Jean King, West Hempstead P.L., NY

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