Dodo Press, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-4099-4292-4
Horror, 2008 (Reissue)
Fun fact: Eleanor M Ingram doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. That’s how deep we’re digging into the horror archives here.
Yet her most notable work, The Thing from the Lake, still manages to stake a modest, fog-draped claim in horror literary history as a rare example of early 20th-century American horror fiction before the pulp boom. It swaps out decaying English castles for musty farmhouses, and sinister butlers for nosy neighbors who apparently have all the time in the world to drop by for ominous chats.
And what a chatty bunch they are.
At first glance, the story feels familiar because it’s essentially the blueprint for every horror novel and B-movie that came after. Roger Locke, a successful New York musician, buys a rickety old farmhouse in the countryside as a relaxing summer retreat. Naturally, it turns out to be cursed to high heaven. Almost immediately, there’s a sense of being watched, mysterious rustlings by the lake, and a ghostly woman appearing in the dead of night to ominously declare “You are in danger!” before vanishing like a polite Victorian jump scare.
To be fair to Ms Ingram, when she isn’t composing endless dialogues about the ominous vibe of the living room curtains, she absolutely nails atmosphere. The descriptions of the decaying house, the dark, glassy lake, and that persistent sense of something malevolent lurking in the mist are genuinely evocative. You can practically hear the damp leaves rustling and feel the fog curling around your ankles as you wonder whether Roger is ever going to leave the house and do something.
Then there’s Desire Michell, the book’s central ghostly figure, and frankly, the only character I am rooting for. Rather than a stock vengeful spirit, she’s a tragic, tormented woman with a sympathetic backstory, a cursed fate, and a surprising amount of agency for a horror novel heroine written in 1921. In fact, Desire has more spine than Roger, who spends most of the book reacting to horror like a man mildly inconvenienced by a draught.
Ms Ingram’s treatment of Desire is actually kind of ahead of its time. No evil-for-evil’s-sake here. She’s powerful, protective, and more or less running this show while the men stand around pontificating. Think Crimson Peak or The Shape of Water a century early, minus the amphibian erotica.
However. And this is a big however.
There’s a reason this book lives in semi-obscurity today. Reading it can be a teeth-gritting, soul-eroding experience because it’s almost entirely a series of long, elliptical, overwrought conversations — most of them in dimly lit rooms with characters doing absolutely nothing while they talk about doing things.
It’s like watching a horror movie where no one ever leaves the parlor and just sits around saying things like, “I felt a chill near the curtains, you know. Most singular.”
Eleanor M Ingram clearly adored atmospheric dread but didn’t trust the reader to feel it without at least six pages of genteel dialogue about how spooky everything is. The actual horror happens second-hand, relayed through endless monologues and speculative chats, like a séance where no ghost ever actually shows up.
And in an age when attention spans are shorter than a TikTok clip, reading The Thing from the Lake can be a rather trying experience.
It’s worth a look for those interested in horror’s dusty old blueprints or for masochists who enjoy atmospheric prose that goes on interminably. But for most readers, a plot summary can be vastly more exciting than the actual story.
This book is worth looking at if you love gloomy lakeside farmhouses, enjoy ghost stories where people mostly talk about the ghost, or you’re currently trapped in 1921 and need something to read by gaslight. Otherwise, just look up the summary online and go about your day.
