The House in Poplar Wood
By: K. E. Ormsbee / Narrated By: Brian Holden
Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
Don’t be fooled by the cover—There’s a LOT more depth than cartoon figures might denote!
The reason I bought this book? It’s cuz it said Halloween in the Publisher’s Summary (Yeah, I read the danged thing!), and I was looking for seasonal holiday fare. But it only starts on Halloween and then a really long and quite good story follows.
From the get-go, we’re told that Death will be a character in this story and that Felix and his father serve Death, and Felix’s twin brother, Lee, and his mother serve Memory. And never the twain shall meet…
Felix and father Vince work and live on the east side of the house in Poplar Wood, and Lee and mother Judith work and live on the west side. Due to a feud between Death and Memory, and to an Agreement, while Felix and Lee can see and visit each other outside the house, each will never see the other parent (Felix will never see his mother, neither can she see him; Lee will never see his father, neither can he see him). And Vince and Judith, tho’ madly in love from the instant they met, are invisible to each other also.
Things start on Halloween, the one day of the year that Death goes out, and it’s the one day a year that Felix is allowed to leave Poplar Wood and visit the neighboring town. While Lee is able to go to school at the town, able to visit the soda shop, wander freely, have hope, Felix can do none of the above, and seeing people as they die since he was but a toddler has left him serious and seriously lacking in hope. This Halloween, as they step out of Poplar Wood to cut through the cemetery on the way to town, they accidentally crash a funeral, and we meet Gretchen. Gretchen comes from a family of Summoners, they who can bend and shape the Shades: Death, Memory, and Passion.
The story is about the three youngsters coming together to assist each other: Gretchen has overheard a conversation and, given that she’s hiiiiiighly inquisitive and rebellious, is driven to find out why Death would kill a young girl before the girl’s time. Lee just wants to end the Agreement as he wants to be part of a whole family; and Felix?
Well, Felix just broke my heart. He just wants the best for his much-loved brother, but he hasn’t any hope that things will change. He’s no hangdog sad sack—rather, he’s had life and faith and joy stolen from him bit by bit, always beaten by Death, his father being Apprentice to Death never stepping in to save young Felix.
We can go the whole symbolism route and discuss here about Death and Memory being foes. Memory threatens permanent death in that we are able to keep some part of an individual alive as long as we have them in our hearts. But sometimes we need a death of sorts to take away some of our more terrible of memories. And blah blah blah
But mostly what we have here is a story of growing trust and friendship, of learning to have hope even if you’ve seen too much, been made party to too much. I kinda sorta wanted to throttle Gretchen at the beginning (Heck, during the middle too!) as she just bulldozes her way willy nilly as she goes, not respecting anything, jeopardizing the safety and livelihoods of others. But she grew on me.
Chalk that up to what turned out to be superior narration by Brian Holden. At the very first, I was kinda thinking that I was in for an even-keel performance, nothing stellar. And the way he did Gretchen’s screechiness had me pondering ice picks to the ears, but then he added warmth to her voice as her character developed. Holden’s voices for all the characters had me really feeling for them (One scene between Felix and father Vince had me wiping a tear from m’ eye), and near the end where suspense started ratcheting up as plans are made and as monkey wrenches are thrown in, Holden varied and sped things up to where I was on the edge of my seat, panting, “This is WHY I haaaate Thrillers!!! Oh GOD what’s going to happen now?!?”
Brilliant writing, and I loved the way we’re not given everything from the start but author K. E. Ormsbee gave just as much info as was needed for the scene at hand, layering everything oh so tantalizingly slowly, until WHAM: It all came together. There would’ve been Aha Moments, but said Aha’s were usually lost in a sea of action and emotion. Brava, Ms. Ormsbee: Make my pulse pound! Make me grab a tissue to mop away those tears!
An Autumn/Winter listen, for sure. But you have Death in his distinguished 3-piece suit, pulling off white gloves so that he can use pincers to drag the life outta people? Totally fine as a Halloween listen…
Do NOT judge this book by its cover—This is a heartfelt story with turning and twisting going on and about, with bullies galore but strength of character as the antidote, with Rites and Hope and Love thrown in. Add excellent narration, and that makes this one a jolly good listen.
Don’t care if it’s Middle Grade, this one is good for adults also. And huzzah for that!!!
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