I have two books by Nat Cassidy on my shelf and this is the newer of them, but they aren't related, to the best of my knowledge, and this is his new one, so I'm diving into this first. I'll follow up with his acclaimed debut from last year, 'Mary: An Awakening of Terror', soon, because I dug this one a great deal, even if I wouldn't call it "the horror book of the year" as Erika Wurth does on its cover.

It is a horror novel, one that's actually capably summed up by an easy elevator pitch, which almost never happens. I've seen it suggested that it's 'Rosemary's Baby' meets ''Salem's Lot' and there is likely no better succinct way to describe it, even if that doesn't cover everything going on within its pages. The only truer way would be to point you at the author's note, which highlights how this is a collection of fictional reactions to the author's 2021, his annus horribilis. But don't read that until after you've read the book. There are reasons why it's at the end rather than the beginning.

The lead character is arguably the Deptford, a historic apartment building in New York City that's been there forever, is known for its gargoyles, and has housed the rich and the famous. Officially, though, we're here for Reid and Ana, who are about to move in, even though they're neither rich nor famous. They're a young Jewish couple with a baby girl, Charlie, almost a year old, and they've won an affordable housing lottery, one of those bizarre concepts that can only exist in the United States. It's a dream win for them, but Ana is still largely paraplegic from a troubled childbirth and so life isn't exactly peachy otherwise..

For instance, Ana hates Charlie as much as she loves her, because of what her birth meant. It's not fair for her to feel that way and she knows that but it's a constant that she has to address and work to change. She's working to get her mobility back and she works at home as a voiceover artist, so it could be worse, but this is a horror movie so we're pretty sure that it's likely to go there soon and Cassidy does not disappoint because he sets us up for a sense of dread early on.

Vera shows them a wonderful apartment, that's been altered to be handicap accessible and has an impressive view of Central Park, from at least eighteen floors up. I say at least, because they're on the eighteenth floor, but some of those floors are given over to duplexes or triplexes, so it's taller than that. That they're at the top is the point, which is why it's rather worrying when Ana sees a face on the other side of the window looking back at her. Also, Vera, who shows them the apartment, has a roach secreted in her hand the entire time and eats it after they leave. They never know but we do and that's all that matters.

It soon becomes clear that they've been chosen but not why, so it's up to us to figure that out while Cassidy gradually drops more hints. Bugs are one angle, starting with that roach and escalating to bites that Charlie starts to exhibit in her crib. That mysterious face suggests otherwise, of course, and if we haven't figured it out by the time we're introduced to Camilla Varné, easily my favourite character in the book, then that should do it. However, it's still not quite as simple as that suggests, because the fact that Reid and Ana are Jewish has particular meaning here.

Sometimes diversity can be authentically explored even in books by white men. I haven't read any horror novels featuring estries before but I'm very happy to have read one now. Oh, and don't look that up. If you know what they are, you'll have seen through this anyway. If you don't, let the book introduce you. There were other words here that ought to be familiar to New York Jews but were new to me, like "bashert", meaning a soulmate, and "ketubah", a Jewish marriage contract. None of these intrude and the book is understandable even if you don't look anything up, but it all helps to ground the novel in a particular culture. Kaynahora, peh peh peh.

Entirely separate to the core thrust of the book, I loved the whole community aspect of this. I don't live in a New York apartment building and I never have, but I've seen enough of them on television and in movies to know that the occupants often don't talk to each other. Privacy is a big deal. In the Deptford, however, because of its nature, they're more than a community and when we get to the point where Cassidy can explore that, I found it absolutely fascinating. It helps that nobody seems to have written anything about the Deptford except for one author, Preston Treadwell, who wrote a book about it which Reid eagerly seeks out.

As a reader, I'd have loved Cassidy to have explored this whole angle more, with both broader and deeper dives into characters like Camilla Varné, Winston Terry and a long string others who rarely become more than just names: Jackson Sterling, Dulcina Arvold and Poppy Loudon. As a writer, I'm understanding as to why he didn't go there, because it would have distracted from the core story that he's telling. Then again, if certain chapters are effectively sales pitches to certain characters, maybe a little more would have helped their case.

Even though this is only Cassidy's book, he's either a more mature writer than that would suggest or he has an excellent editor, perhaps both. One little touch of his that I particularly appreciated is the way that he kept off balance by having non-numbered chapters. It seems to be a given that the chapter numbers go up. It doesn't matter how long those chapters are or what format we read, we know we're making progress because we're on a higher number chapter than we were before. This book steals that way, like our concept of time in a casino, because the chapters are not numbered, but each chapter has numbered sections, which restart when we get to the next one. It's one of the reasons that Cassidy capably keeps us feeling just off.

Another, of course, for most of us, is that Ana is in a wheelchair but it's still a recent thing for her. That means that it affects who she is and what she can do; how she can interact with other people and with her surroundings; and even how she relates to her daughter. It surely factors into why she and Reid were chosen for the Deptford too. And it absolutely makes the chase scene fascinating to read. A friend is in a similar situation, though it's been longer than a year for her and she doesn't have the potential for recovery that Ana does. However, whenever we spend time together, I find myself reminded that simply navigating the world is a very different undertaking for her. Putting that into a horror novel is so natural that I'm suddenly amazed it hasn't been overdone already.

'Mary' doesn't tread the same ground, I don't think, but it promises to be just as unsettling for an array of similar reasons. I'm looking forward to it. ~~ Hal C F Astell