Το τελευταίο σπίτι της οδού Νίντλες
Catriona Ward, 2022
★ 3.79 from 171k ratings on Goodreads
A terrified, gentle-voiced narrator and an eleven-year-old disappearance on his street, told and retold. A gothic puzzle that reads like a fever you can't stop watching. A gentle voice carries dread through a gothic puzzle of memory and home, unsettling and feverish, with a slow unravelling pace.
Feels like dread, unease and tenderness. About madness, memory and home.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy gothic puzzles with unreliable memory and a narrator whose gentle voice hides unease. Be prepared for a deliberately confusing, disjointed middle that some readers find tedious before the pieces start to fit.
Why read it
It offers a tense, original gothic experience about memory and a street's buried history, best for readers who like atmosphere and are willing to sit with confusion.
A page from the book
Every anniversary the same photo, and one small wish no one grants.
Όταν βλέπω το πρωτοσέλιδο, το στομάχι μου σφίγγεται. Να την. Είχα ξεχάσει πως η επέτειος είναι σήμερα. Δεν τα πάω τόσο καλά με τον χρόνο. Πάντα χρησιμοποιούν την ίδια φωτογραφία. Τα μάτια της είναι μεγάλα κάτω από το γείσο του καπέλου της, τα δάχτυλά της σφίγγουν το ξυλάκι, λες και φοβάται μην της το πάρουν. Τα μαλλιά της είναι υγρά και γυαλιστερά, κομμένα αγορίστικα. Κολυμπούσε, αλλά κανείς δεν την τυλίγει σε μια χνουδωτή πετσέτα για να τη στεγνώσει. Δεν μου αρέσει αυτό. Μπορεί να κρυώσει. Δεν δημοσιεύουν την άλλη φωτογραφία, τη δική μου. Μπήκαν σε μεγάλες φασαρίες μ’ αυτή. Αν και όχι τόσο μεγάλες, αν θέλετε τη γνώμη μου. Ήταν έξι χρονών. What readers say
Readers often describe being confused and unsettled, then gripped by the slow unravelling and twists; many praise originality and atmosphere, while some find it tedious or too disjointed.
Catriona Ward.The book was published the same day as Catriona Ward's sister's first novel. She has said the two of them alternated between the words «Horror Novel» and «Romance Novel» on Instagram.
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Questions readers ask
- Is Το τελευταίο σπίτι της οδού Νίντλες for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy gothic puzzles with unreliable memory and a narrator whose gentle voice hides unease. Be prepared for a deliberately confusing, disjointed middle that some readers find tedious before the pieces start to fit.
- What is Το τελευταίο σπίτι της οδού Νίντλες like?
- A gentle voice carries dread through a gothic puzzle of memory and home, unsettling and feverish, with a slow unravelling pace. Feels like dread, unease and tenderness. About madness, memory and home.
- What should I read after Το τελευταίο σπίτι της οδού Νίντλες?
- If you liked Το τελευταίο σπίτι της οδού Νίντλες, try The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins), The Tommyknockers (Stephen King) and The Turn of the Screw (Henry James).
A taste of the feed
A home you can't stop looking at, even though it hurts.
I lived at number twenty-three Blenheim Road for five years, blissfully happy and utterly wretched. I can’t look at it now. That was my first home. Not my parents’ place, not a flatshare with other students, my first home. I can’t bear to look at it. Well, I can, I do, I want to, I don’t want to, I try not to. Every day I tell myself not to look, and every day I look. I can’t help myself, even though there is nothing I want to see there, even though anything I do see will hurt me.
The Girl on the Train · Paula Hawkins
Every name we give a thing is a small act of surrender.
“There really isn’t an Altair-4, just as there aren’t really any Tommyknockers. There aren’t any nouns for some things - they just are. Somebody pastes one name on those things in one place, somebody pastes on another someplace else. It’s never a very good name, but it doesn’t matter. You came back from New Hampshire talking about Tommyknockers, so here that’s what we are. We’ve been called other things in other places. Altair-4 has, too. It’s just a place where things get stored. Usually not live things. Attics can be cold, dark places.”
The Tommyknockers · Stephen King
What fear does to the body before the mind can decide.
Why did I remain silent and motionless while such an outrage was being committed? If, instead of being a very nervous girl, preoccupied with an undefinable terror of that wicked woman, I had possessed courage and presence of mind, I dare say I might have given an alarm, and escaped from the room without the slightest risk. But so it was; I could no more stir than the bird who, cowering under its ivy, sees the white owl sailing back and forward under its predatory cruise.
Uncle Silas · Sheridan Le Fanu
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