The Hundred-Year House: A Historical Fiction Novel - Perfect for Book Clubs & Literary Enthusiasts

Rebecca Makkai has written a clever, brilliant puzzle box of a book about a house and the secrets it has witnessed, gathered - and maintained its silence about - over its one hundred year lifespan. This is a novel of many characters and many layers. It relates its history and divulges its secrets from the present day backwards - rather like deconstructing an onion – until, at its very end (the Prologue), you “unpeel” the final layer and find, just like an onion, you have nothing tangible left in your hand.Nothing that is, except for a strong sense of portent fraught with potential.The story “begins” in 1999 on the cusp of the 21st century (remember the Y2K scare?). In this 1st section, you are presented with answers – lots of them. But, and this is what Makkai has done so cleverly, you are in the unusual position of having more answers than you have questions. And because of that, you aren’t really sure which question goes with which answer, the result being that, even if you have the right answer associated with the right question, you don’t really know what that answer means. This first section is an easy read and engages you immediately. The prose is crisp and the characters are well-drawn, warts and all. Partial truths and the portents of further mysteries are tantalizingly and frustratingly revealed. You want to know more.Part II (1955) divulges more layers of secrets and characters. The tone is darker, the prose is softer and more melancholy – weightier and atmospheric - which is in keeping with the events it relates. Questions associated with the answers discovered in Part I are revealed. But… even more answers come to light; and again, you have more answers than questions. The puzzle box continues to mystify and intrigue you.Part III (1929) continues the deconstruction of the onion. Honestly, I found this section to be the least successful. It is a bit overwrought and overwritten. There are a profusion of characters, and while this is understandable (it is an artist colony after all), Makkai’s decision to keep all the characters in the forefront while telling the important events that occur during the evening of the “bacchanal”, drags the story down. You have to plow through a lot of words and you have to do it carefully because there are secrets and final answers to be unearthed – it’s just that you have to shovel a lot of earth to get to them. You will want to start skimming (not all the characters are as interesting as Makkai thinks they are), but don’t skim. Once you get past the events of that pivotal evening, the story shakes off its torpor and moves right along. Careful reading will yield maximum reward.Part IV (1900) is the Prologue, where we meet Violet and learn of the genesis of the house.I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I will tell you, it’s not a haunted house story. It’s not a ghost story either. Luckily, this fascinating novel doesn’t need anything so run of the mill. The whole Violet thread is not strong or compelling enough to be the connecting thread through all the layers. I’m telling you this so that you don’t go into the book with those expectations. You will find that the characters who resided in the house were haunted long before they ever came there. Haunted by grief, loneliness, longing, fear and need - combined with a fragile hope for relief and happiness.Perhaps it is in Part I after all that you will find the true “answer” to all the questions – that, after one hundred years, there is light in the house again, and that, perhaps for this next “layer” of the story, the light will banish the darkness. Which would make the people who once walked those corridors and inhabited those rooms very happy indeed.