The Vessel - Adam Nevill is Still in Top Form
One of the aspects of Adam Nevill’s writing that I’ve always found fascinating is his ability to put his characters in situations they cannot easily escape. In The Ritual he threw the guys in the middle of an unending forest and forced them to attempt survival. In No One Gets Out Alive Stephanie is forced to stay in the house or live on the street, she has no alternative. There is a similar situation in last years release Cunning Folk. He does it again in his new novel The Vessel and the results are just as horrific as the other books mentioned above.
In The Vessel Jess is a single mother trying to hold her life together and provide for her daughter, Izzy. She is able to find a job as a caretaker for an elderly woman at her home known as the Nerthus House. Without giving too much away (but come on this is a Nevill book so we all know what is bound to happen here) when the shit hits the fan at the Nerthus House, Jess has no alternatives. She cannot leave her job or she risks losing a place for her and Izzy to go. In spite of that gut feeling she is stuck.
Again, Nevill does an incredible job of setting the scene. The first chapter is mostly a description of the house itself and Nevill pulls the reader through the place giving them an idea of exactly what the setting of the story will look like. Once the story commences, we get an idea of just how evil the house can become.
Nevill also does a great job of creating a claustrophobic atmosphere that grows with each turn of the page. While there are scenes that take place outside the house, by the end of the book every scene is inside the house and you can feel the world tightening down around Jess and Izzy and you’re forced to keep reading to see if they are going to make it through their torment in one piece.
I’ve been a big fan of Nevill’s work for a long time and this addition to his work is unique in that it is much shorter than most of his other books. Although there are less words and less pages, it is no less terrifying. I’ve often though that the best form of horror is the novella and/or short novels. There are many examples of this throughout the history of the genre. The Vessel backs up that fact. This book is on the short side (coming in at around 150 pages) but it still packs the same amount of dread inducing terror that Nevill is known for. Each page is dripping with the sense of foreboding and exhilaration that leaves you wanting to read on and find out what happens next.
Nevill continues to impress with The Vessel and I think it’s a great book for someone new to Nevill’s work because it deals with a lot of the same elements as his other works. Strong 5/5 from me on this one. Check it out on October 31.
