What Moves the Dead is a novella (only 176 pages! many of them are blank!) in which T. Kingfisher tries to answer some of the questions left unanswered by Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher." As in A House with Good Bones, there's a great combo of humor and horror mixed in with this book.
Alex Easton, a former soldier, rushes to the bedside of his childhood friends Madeline and Roderick Usher, when Madeline writes Alex a letter that Madeline is dying. What Alex finds at the crumbling mansion by the lake is unspeakable, sad, and scary.
I like Kingfisher so much. I mean, I wasn't aware that I was going on a mini-spree of zombie books, but LIFE IS MYSTERIOUS, right? It's scary to think about how the human race is one infection away from annihilation. So, hey, go live a life worth living. That's what I say anyway.
4/5 stars
Lines of note:
I am delighted by obscure passions, no matter how unusual. During the war, I was once holed up in a shepherd's cottage, listening for the enemy to come up the hillside, when the shepherd launched into an impassioned diatribe on the finer points of sheep breeding that rivaled any sermon I have ever heard in my life. By the end, I was nodding along and willing to launch a crusade against all weak, overbred flocks, prone to scours and fly-strike, crowding out the honest sheep of the world. (page 5)
Preach this. I love hearing people talk about the things they love, even when I know absolutely nothing about about it. Well, except for my nephew talking about Minecraft. I legitimately have no idea what he's talking about, to be honest with you.
Sometimes it's hard to know if someone is insulting or just an American. (page 25)
Ha! The best part of this is that Kingfisher is American.
Thing I looked up:
turnspit terrier (page 22) - an extinct short-legged, long-bodied dog bred to run on a wheel (called a turnspit) - there's an existing taxidermied example at a museum in Wales
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This sounds good! And I also love hearing people talking about their passions, although I agree on Minecraft, AND Pokemon is another thing kids can go on and on about and your eyes start to glaze
ReplyDeleteover, ha ha.
YES! Pokemon is definitely not my jam, either. You get it. I do love that my nieces and nephews have interests, but I just don't always understand why they're interested in what they're interested in.
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