Stiff Lips

by Anne Billson

By the author of "Suckers". Sophie, Clare's friend, has everything and Clare is fed up with not having it all. Clare's going to make it to Notting Hill and live the good life if it kills her, and it's starting to look as if it might.

Genres: Horror

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

ANNE BILLSON is a film critic, novelist, photographer, style icon, wicked spinster, evil feminist, and international cat-sitter who has lived in London, Tokyo, Paris and Croydon, and now lives in Belgium. She likes frites, beer and chocolate.

Her books include SUCKERS (an upwardly mobile vampire novel), STIFF LIPS (a Notting Hill ghost story), THE EX (a supernatural detective story) and THE COMING THING (Rosemary's Baby meets Bridget Jones) as well as several works of non-fiction, including BILLSON FILM DATABASE, BREAST MAN: A CONVERSATION WITH RUSS MEYER, and monographs on the films THE THING and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.

Her latest book is CATS ON FILM, the definitive work of feline film scholarship.

She sometimes writes about film for the Guardian, and is currently working on a screenplay and a sequel to her vampire novel, SUCKERS. She has three blogs: multiglom.com (the Billson Blog), catsonfilm.net (a blog about cats in the cinema), and lempiredeslumieres.com (photographs of Belgian beer, bars and sunsets).

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't really your typical ghost story. For one, it is equal parts horror and satire. It's actually pretty damn hilarious at times, especially if you enjoy British humor (I guess that should be humour), but also extremely creepy, with an underlying mystery that kept me engaged throughout.

It's sort of a story within a story, in that it's being told in the first person by someone at a party who is listening to a young woman's account of her friend's recent haunting. The woman, Clare, is clearly obsessed and envious of her friend Sophie's social status, as she is living the high life in London's ritzy Notting Hill neighborhood while she herself is a normal working girl, and that envy just permeates her nearly every word. She's even jealous that Sophie was "chosen" to be haunted over herself. Not only that, Sophie's ghost seems to be a hunk who was in a 60s psych-rock band. Just her luck.

The tone is sarcastic throughout, which I thought might get old in a ghost story, but I grew to enjoy Clare's constant biting remarks and backhanded compliments, as well as her desperate attempts to weave her way into Sophie's circle of friends. I never felt myself wanting her to "get to the spooky stuff already" (and trust me she does get there), as the mystery of the haunting, with its many twists and turns, was intriguing enough. It was a good mix, and I'll definitely be reading more Billson in the future.

[Snakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

So in 1993 Billson was rated as one of Britain's Best Young Novelist and that's why I added this title to my reading list. And all in all it was great. Almost borderline campy horror with a serious side. Well written and a great story that held my interest. My only confusion has nothing to do with the author but rather the format of the book. Unfortunately it appears to be out of print in the actual book form, but can be gotten on Kindle easily enough. However, I picked it up anticipating a quick read. The stats have it listed at 281 pages; and granted I sideloaded the title on my Kindle through Calibre which sometimes changes the type size and subsequently the book length, etc. However, my Kindle copy was almost 450 pages long in the same size font. Seems to me there's an error there. That's almost 200 pages more of story. But like I said, all the "extra" was just as good.

[Althea Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this authors story in "Granta" enough that I ordered two of her novels. They're both from the 90's, and definitely have that feel to them. I seems that these days she's concentrating on journalism and film criticism. While the first of her books I read, 'Suckers' is a vampire tale, and 'Stiff Lips' is more of a ghost story, the voice of the protagonist is remarkably similar: that of a young woman who tries to present herself in a good light, but whom you come to realize is truly a horrible, utterly self-centered person. (With friends like these, who needs enemies?)
It works - and if I hadn't recently read both, it wouldn't have bothered me, but I ended up trying to figure out if Dora (from Suckers) and Clare (this novel's narrator) were really the same person.
That said, I really thought this was an above-average haunted house story.
Clare is utterly jealous of her bff & frenemy Sophie's life. Her job, her friends, her fashion... even the neighborhood she lives in. When a neighbor suggests that Clare take over the empty upstairs apartment in Sophie's building, she jumps on the chance. But rumors abound about things that may have happened in the house...suicides, drunken deaths at parties... Phantom music from a 60's rock band that used to live in the house is heard, and Sophie's new boyfriend may not even be a living man... Gradually, the tension builds, and something has eventually got to give.
Definitely recommended for fans of spooky, supernatural stories with a modern edge.

(I got a particular kick out of the fact that the band in the book was called The Drunken Boats - I kept thinking of the NYC band Drunken Boat that used to play at CBs all the time. I know Billson was going back to the Rimbaud poem... but still.)

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Stiff Lips' is an extremely entertaining ghost story with a nice line in humour, believable characters and enough creepy goings on to keep horror fans happy. The unravelling of the central mystery is well handled with a couple of decent twists and some subtle misdirection that never feels cheap. The climax wraps things up in a satisfying way and invokes a genuine sense of helpless terror. What stood out for me most was the realistic way in which the central character Clare is portrayed, the reader is drawn into the humdrum details of her life as well as the supernatural events surrounding her. The fact we get to know and like Clare so much makes the unfolding of the narrative even more gripping.
I can't help feeling it's a shame that the waning of the horror genre means that Anne Billson hasn't published more fiction; she has a deft hand, a great way with characters and a nasty imagination.
Recommended.

[Jacob O'connor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I give myself a 50 page grace period when starting a new book. If the author can't hook me by then, I allow myself to put the book aside. No hard feelings. Stiff Lips was just okay enough to keep me going past the 50 mark. I wasn’t exactly having a blast, but I was curious where Billson was going. It's a shame, because the book never got better than "just okay". I'd rather a book be just plain bad than to string me along for 400 pages. Can't recommend this one.

[Boris Monster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spooky but fun

Great haunted house/ghost story. The central character Clare is particularly well drawn. She's not always entirely likeable but is completely believable.
Intriguing twists and turns propel the reader, with a growing sense of dread, to the exciting climax. That said, there are plenty of laugh out loud moments.
A fun read.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I know the author.
A satisfyingly spooky and blackly comic tale. Quite leisurely paced, so don't expect a page-turning thriller or jump-out-of-your-seat scares, but it compensates with in-depth and convincing characterisation and thematic richness. In fact it's less a ghost story and more a study of loneliness, angst, envy and class consciousness.

[Lesley]

I don't think I like Billson's fiction anywhere like as much as I like her film criticism, but this worked surprisingly well for me.