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Bleak November
When Amy Burton’s mother-in-law buys her and her husband Eric a lovely old mansion, it sounds like a dream come true for the young couple. But there’s something not quite right about the house. Old Mrs. Mac, who has psychic gifts, is the first to notice a sinister aura, and then there are the weird cries in the night and the scratching of a ghostly black dog at the door. Even stranger is the fact that the old house is not really old, but for some mysterious reason has been made to look that way.
At last Amy learns the unspeakable truth about a horrible deed committed in the house. But Amy has secrets of her own, buried deep within her memory and struggling to break free to the surface. The terror at the Burton house mounts, but is it really haunted, or is it all just in Amy’s mind? Readers will find the book impossible to put down until its final shocking revelation.
Inspired in part by a real-life case, Rohan O’Grady’s Bleak November (1970) is an exceptional Gothic novel with a genuinely creepy atmosphere, a slow-building sense of dread, and enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing.
At last Amy learns the unspeakable truth about a horrible deed committed in the house. But Amy has secrets of her own, buried deep within her memory and struggling to break free to the surface. The terror at the Burton house mounts, but is it really haunted, or is it all just in Amy’s mind? Readers will find the book impossible to put down until its final shocking revelation.
Inspired in part by a real-life case, Rohan O’Grady’s Bleak November (1970) is an exceptional Gothic novel with a genuinely creepy atmosphere, a slow-building sense of dread, and enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing.
206 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
1 person is currently reading
222 people want to read
About the author
Rohan O'Grady
5 books13 followersRohan O'Grady is the pseudonym for June Margaret O'Grady Skinner, who also wrote as A. Carleon.
O'Grady began writing poetry and stories as a young child and ventured into full-length fiction in her late thirties after her marriage to newspaper editor Frederick Skinner.
June Skinner has resided in West Vancouver since 1959.
O'Grady began writing poetry and stories as a young child and ventured into full-length fiction in her late thirties after her marriage to newspaper editor Frederick Skinner.
June Skinner has resided in West Vancouver since 1959.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 9, 2020
If there’s ever a time to read a spooky novel entitled Bleak November, this November, in the year 2020 A.D., seems fitting. For historical reference, the world's been hunkered down over eight months thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve skipped birthdays, weddings, funerals, seated dining and blockbuster movies to social distance. For many, Thanksgiving is going to be a Zoom affair because airports are germy and we don’t want to kill Grandma. In the United States, confirmed virus cases have reached a record-shattering 125k+ per day. At the time of this writing, our death toll is 243,768.
Part of me did worry that reading a bleak novel during a bleak time would be overwhelming. My decision to pick up Stephen King’s The Stand right at the beginning of the outbreak led to some chilling nightmares and panic attacks. Still, I thought, you can only live through 2020 once. Why not make the most of it?
As it turned out, O’Grady’s 1970 out-of-print gothic horror novel is creepy, but not all that bleak. Maybe it’s just my glee over the presidential election outcome (less celebration and more relief, like narrowly avoiding a car crash) but this book actually had me laughing out loud. O’Grady is a wizard of wit. She paces out her punch lines to perfection. At times the narration is reminiscent of David Sedaris. Even when the topic is murdered children, mental illness, and a haunted mansion.
Marriage is the main source for humor, however. Our leading Canadian couple are products of their time, torn between conservative upbringing and modern liberation. The wife is the breadwinner of the family while her husband dawdles most of his day trying to write a novel. She’s not at all interested in his writing and makes many snide comments about him. For example, at one point she struggles to imagine her husband as a young boy and finds this puzzling. She eventually concludes “I suppose there is no reason why there shouldn’t be sardonic, misanthropic little boys.”
The husband is also given opportunity to make jabs, of course. “People who fool around with the occult have a tendency to go off the deep end,” he says. Then adds, “Fortunately most of them are women so you hardly notice the difference.”
Eventually we settle into the premise. The couple are gifted a spooky mansion by the husband’s eccentric mother after she comes into an unexpected inheritance. For some bizarre reason the house was literally uprooted and moved to it’s new location and made to appear older than it really is. As we come to find out, this has to do with a dark past that forever stained the walls within. Cue creepy sounds in the night, a ghostly dog, and a spooky séance scene to assure all the ingredients of a gothic chiller are present.
A New York Times reviewer called Bleak November “the silliest book I’ve ever read” and noted that O’Grady must’ve “improvised this mad tale without any masterplan” as it “switches directions a half dozen times.” This is an astute observation and the heart of the novel’s charm and weakness. Though barely over 200 pages, it seems to be five or six novels crammed into one. There’s a subtext-driven marriage melodrama, an exploration of female psychosis, haunted house tropes, and several whodunit mysteries, most of which are never resolved to much satisfaction.
That said, even the NYT reviewer admitted “by the time I finished it very late at night I hesitated to look up from its pages.” I have to agree that it’s a lurking creeper which doesn’t depart the imagination easily. The shape-shifting tone, inexplicable narrator, and general inability to know what the hell is going to go down next doesn’t feel as unrealistic as it sounds. Written through journal entries that descend into madness, it has that kind of Ghost Hunter reality-TV vibe which you know is absurd, but it still haunts your dreams.
It would be another thing if the prose were poor, but O’Grady’s mastery of language places her among the few writers who can make every sentence dazzle. Also, her structuring of each chapter with an excerpt from newspaper clippings adds to the mystery. This technique salvages the inconsistencies by making them seem part of a coherent narrative strategy. Not until the book is closed and you start to dissect do you realize how slapdash it is.
A quick search of used book websites suggests this is a fairly sought-after or rare publication. There aren’t a lot of copies out there anyway, and most are fairly expensive. I don’t know that I would recommend going to great length to hunt it down, but if you can manage to snag one for under $15 I’d consider that a fair price worthy of the entertainment within.
MORE ON THE AUTHOR:
Rohan O’Grady is actually a pen name for June Margaret O’Grady (1922-2014). She published five novels, Let’s Kill Uncle (1964) being her most successful after William Castle filmed a movie adaptation in 1966. Donna Tartt is perhaps the most notable talent who continues to list Let’s Kill Uncle as exceptional literature, but she’s not alone. I haven't read that one (yet) but will definitely be adding it to my list, along with other O’Grady works which have been described as “gothic” or “dark comedy.”
More reviews can be found on my Blog.
Please 'like' and/or leave a comment :)
Part of me did worry that reading a bleak novel during a bleak time would be overwhelming. My decision to pick up Stephen King’s The Stand right at the beginning of the outbreak led to some chilling nightmares and panic attacks. Still, I thought, you can only live through 2020 once. Why not make the most of it?
As it turned out, O’Grady’s 1970 out-of-print gothic horror novel is creepy, but not all that bleak. Maybe it’s just my glee over the presidential election outcome (less celebration and more relief, like narrowly avoiding a car crash) but this book actually had me laughing out loud. O’Grady is a wizard of wit. She paces out her punch lines to perfection. At times the narration is reminiscent of David Sedaris. Even when the topic is murdered children, mental illness, and a haunted mansion.
Marriage is the main source for humor, however. Our leading Canadian couple are products of their time, torn between conservative upbringing and modern liberation. The wife is the breadwinner of the family while her husband dawdles most of his day trying to write a novel. She’s not at all interested in his writing and makes many snide comments about him. For example, at one point she struggles to imagine her husband as a young boy and finds this puzzling. She eventually concludes “I suppose there is no reason why there shouldn’t be sardonic, misanthropic little boys.”
The husband is also given opportunity to make jabs, of course. “People who fool around with the occult have a tendency to go off the deep end,” he says. Then adds, “Fortunately most of them are women so you hardly notice the difference.”
Eventually we settle into the premise. The couple are gifted a spooky mansion by the husband’s eccentric mother after she comes into an unexpected inheritance. For some bizarre reason the house was literally uprooted and moved to it’s new location and made to appear older than it really is. As we come to find out, this has to do with a dark past that forever stained the walls within. Cue creepy sounds in the night, a ghostly dog, and a spooky séance scene to assure all the ingredients of a gothic chiller are present.
A New York Times reviewer called Bleak November “the silliest book I’ve ever read” and noted that O’Grady must’ve “improvised this mad tale without any masterplan” as it “switches directions a half dozen times.” This is an astute observation and the heart of the novel’s charm and weakness. Though barely over 200 pages, it seems to be five or six novels crammed into one. There’s a subtext-driven marriage melodrama, an exploration of female psychosis, haunted house tropes, and several whodunit mysteries, most of which are never resolved to much satisfaction.
That said, even the NYT reviewer admitted “by the time I finished it very late at night I hesitated to look up from its pages.” I have to agree that it’s a lurking creeper which doesn’t depart the imagination easily. The shape-shifting tone, inexplicable narrator, and general inability to know what the hell is going to go down next doesn’t feel as unrealistic as it sounds. Written through journal entries that descend into madness, it has that kind of Ghost Hunter reality-TV vibe which you know is absurd, but it still haunts your dreams.
It would be another thing if the prose were poor, but O’Grady’s mastery of language places her among the few writers who can make every sentence dazzle. Also, her structuring of each chapter with an excerpt from newspaper clippings adds to the mystery. This technique salvages the inconsistencies by making them seem part of a coherent narrative strategy. Not until the book is closed and you start to dissect do you realize how slapdash it is.
A quick search of used book websites suggests this is a fairly sought-after or rare publication. There aren’t a lot of copies out there anyway, and most are fairly expensive. I don’t know that I would recommend going to great length to hunt it down, but if you can manage to snag one for under $15 I’d consider that a fair price worthy of the entertainment within.
MORE ON THE AUTHOR:
Rohan O’Grady is actually a pen name for June Margaret O’Grady (1922-2014). She published five novels, Let’s Kill Uncle (1964) being her most successful after William Castle filmed a movie adaptation in 1966. Donna Tartt is perhaps the most notable talent who continues to list Let’s Kill Uncle as exceptional literature, but she’s not alone. I haven't read that one (yet) but will definitely be adding it to my list, along with other O’Grady works which have been described as “gothic” or “dark comedy.”
More reviews can be found on my Blog.
Please 'like' and/or leave a comment :)
December 16, 2017
"Boys and girls, come out to play/she longs for children, and finds them: little ghosts, once slaughtered, now crying and laughing and being children again, all around her. less of a haunting and more of a terrible kind of wish fulfillment. the novel abounds in such sorts of wishes come true: a house bought and made into her own, a house that is new but strangely, inexplicably, made to look old... a distracted husband who becomes a yoke around her neck, a writer of surprising brilliance and unsurprising insensitivity... a manly young contractor, the perfect person to have a passionate affair with, but a man who doesn't respect any woman let alone her, a churlish ape who can somehow, horribly, read her thoughts and answer questions she hasn't asked out loud... new tenants and so a new community, a new extended family, a mother a son a sort of daughter, all become problems or rivals or threats - and one of whom has accidentally invited those ghost children back to haunt them all. the nourishing food of life loses its flavor, becomes ashes in the mouth.
The moon doth shine as bright as day"
Bleak November is a haunting book: in the story itself, in how it is told, and where it eventually goes. its protagonist is strong, sardonic, and wonderfully idiosyncratic; which makes her gradual breakdown all the more startling and harrowing. this expertly written and often incredibly creepy novel is full of mysteries terrible and bleak. why would a new house be altered so that it appears to be old? who robbed that bank and where is the lost money? why must women constantly suffer at the hands of ego-driven men? why was that family of nine slaughtered? are those children real? what is that lonely dog, scratching at the door late at night? is our heroine truly going insane? what happens when a woman who is losing her mind is haunted? perhaps she will embrace that haunting, turn what is unreal into her reality. the children may leave her at last, and God bless their transition; her sanity may leave as well, because madness may be its own sort of blessing. and who will be pushed into the bear pit, and so slaughtered? ours is not to wonder why...
Actually, I keep wondering why I keep saying actually. Things are certainly actual enough in this life, aren't they?
February 20, 2018
Thank you, Mark Monday, for your tip on this excellent little chiller.
I am not a big fan of the paranormal, so when I come across a story that is as intricately plotted as this, as creepy, with such interesting and well-drawn characters, and whose resolution does not involve blowing ectoplasm up my ass .. well, I’m in horror heaven.
If I had to sum up the theme of Bleak November, it would be to say it’s essentially a story about finding a home.
We first meet Amy & Eric, a married couple struggling financially and living in a small apartment. On an outing with Eric’s mother Laura, who raised him as a hard-working, struggling single mom, they find this house that’s recently been wholly relocated. Laura buys the house, and thus it becomes a first home for all three. What they come to learn is that it was a final home for its previous owners: a policeman, his wife, and their eight children — all killed by his hand.
Once they move in, Laura doesn’t stick around too long, and what we eventually come to learn about her own origins puts her face on a particularly strange milk carton.
To make ends meet, Amy decides to take in boarders. Boarding, to my mind, is a residency which has a tenuous air about it. The boarders include a housekeeper and her autistic son, whose outbursts have made it difficult for them to settle anywhere for very long, as well as a teenage girl fresh off the farm, eager to escape the limits of her former home. Two non-resident characters integral to the plot are Igor and Elaina, who are living together in what appears to be a temporary arrangement. Igor is a man who radiates rootlessness. Elaina is his pregnant girlfriend, desperate to stay rooted till she gives birth. So all these disparate characters share a mutual transient state. Some will find home happily (Elaina), some not so happily (teenage boarder Elsbeth), and some will find that a house is not necessarily a home.
O’Grady draws parallels between the two most haunted characters in the book: Bobby, the former family’s spooked dog who ran off in terror during the bloodbath, and Amy, who is haunted by the bloodbath. Tormented Amy pleads with a feckless self-absorbed Eric to leave the house, to no avail. I yearned for her to go find Bobby and hit the friggin’ road!
At the end, we learn that both a very wounded Bobby and Amy do find homes. But just as it happened with O’Grady’s other characters: one happily, and one not so much.
I am not a big fan of the paranormal, so when I come across a story that is as intricately plotted as this, as creepy, with such interesting and well-drawn characters, and whose resolution does not involve blowing ectoplasm up my ass .. well, I’m in horror heaven.
If I had to sum up the theme of Bleak November, it would be to say it’s essentially a story about finding a home.
We first meet Amy & Eric, a married couple struggling financially and living in a small apartment. On an outing with Eric’s mother Laura, who raised him as a hard-working, struggling single mom, they find this house that’s recently been wholly relocated. Laura buys the house, and thus it becomes a first home for all three. What they come to learn is that it was a final home for its previous owners: a policeman, his wife, and their eight children — all killed by his hand.
Once they move in, Laura doesn’t stick around too long, and what we eventually come to learn about her own origins puts her face on a particularly strange milk carton.
To make ends meet, Amy decides to take in boarders. Boarding, to my mind, is a residency which has a tenuous air about it. The boarders include a housekeeper and her autistic son, whose outbursts have made it difficult for them to settle anywhere for very long, as well as a teenage girl fresh off the farm, eager to escape the limits of her former home. Two non-resident characters integral to the plot are Igor and Elaina, who are living together in what appears to be a temporary arrangement. Igor is a man who radiates rootlessness. Elaina is his pregnant girlfriend, desperate to stay rooted till she gives birth. So all these disparate characters share a mutual transient state. Some will find home happily (Elaina), some not so happily (teenage boarder Elsbeth), and some will find that a house is not necessarily a home.
O’Grady draws parallels between the two most haunted characters in the book: Bobby, the former family’s spooked dog who ran off in terror during the bloodbath, and Amy, who is haunted by the bloodbath. Tormented Amy pleads with a feckless self-absorbed Eric to leave the house, to no avail. I yearned for her to go find Bobby and hit the friggin’ road!
At the end, we learn that both a very wounded Bobby and Amy do find homes. But just as it happened with O’Grady’s other characters: one happily, and one not so much.
November 27, 2024
An enjoyable psychological gothic with a slow build that teases directions it could go. I wouldn't say there are huge surprises going on here, but what's interesting is that the author uses writing which leans mostly on allusion to unveil the mysteries and twists that begin to unravel throughout the story. Which is slightly odd given there isn't much open to interpretation (also, some of the twists towards the end I found relatively easy to call ahead of time), although there is a blurred line between a certain before and after which is left to the reader to work out.
There's some parallels going on between two stories - one overt and one left to the background - which weave together and resolve in opposite ways. Along with with some cleverly laid false trails, minor details of craft such as these helped elevate it from being an average novel of its type. It reminded me very slightly of Pans Labyrinth, except that was much less satisfying to me in how it all intertwined (a left field comparison given these are very different genres).
If I am being vague, it's simply to avoid spoilers and hope people go in relatively blind. Don't be fooled into thinking this might be a traditional haunted house story though. if you like slow burn novels with unreliable narrators, 70's gothic ambience and psychological thrillers, this a cleverly crafted novel well worth a couple of days of anyone's time. There are also two polar bears on the cover which threw a proper curve ball at me which I appreciated when it hit me square between the eyes at the appropriate moment.
Putting that together and offsetting it with some uncomfortable and dated values that the characters often relay (such were the 70's), I enjoyed how it was put together and the story that was told - enough to try more of the authors backlist.
There's some parallels going on between two stories - one overt and one left to the background - which weave together and resolve in opposite ways. Along with with some cleverly laid false trails, minor details of craft such as these helped elevate it from being an average novel of its type. It reminded me very slightly of Pans Labyrinth, except that was much less satisfying to me in how it all intertwined (a left field comparison given these are very different genres).
If I am being vague, it's simply to avoid spoilers and hope people go in relatively blind. Don't be fooled into thinking this might be a traditional haunted house story though. if you like slow burn novels with unreliable narrators, 70's gothic ambience and psychological thrillers, this a cleverly crafted novel well worth a couple of days of anyone's time. There are also two polar bears on the cover which threw a proper curve ball at me which I appreciated when it hit me square between the eyes at the appropriate moment.
Putting that together and offsetting it with some uncomfortable and dated values that the characters often relay (such were the 70's), I enjoyed how it was put together and the story that was told - enough to try more of the authors backlist.
September 8, 2025
Set somewhere near Vancouver, CA, a newly married couple named Amy and Eric move into a house which was detached from the foundation and entirely moved. Purchased as a gift by Eric's mother, Amy soon discovers from her and Eric's friend, Igor, that the structure of the home was the site of a brutal familicide which resulted in the death of 8 children and a housewife. Upon researching, I believe this was inspired by the family massacre in Coquitlam, BC; a man named Leonard Hogue shot and killed his entire family and then himself. Upon moving into the house, Amy has nightmares, the family hears clawing and screaming throughout the night, a ghost dog attempts to claw its way into the house and the boarders they rent to begin to see faces (which are not their own) reflected back in the mirrors.
If you are a fan of gothic fiction and you're looking for that forgotten, hidden gem, then you've found what you're looking for. This novel does strongly lack in romance, but it is beautifully written, burns slowly and oozes creepiness better than most books I've read. The narrative is confused, seemingly pulling in multiple directions but still incredibly potent. It only took around 30 pages for me to feel constant dread.
I've noticed many claim that "November wasn't that bleak," and I challenge them to reread the ending chapters. This book is beyond bleak, but the shock factor is merely implied; I only grasped what "really" happened upon multiple readings of the final chapters. I've never written a review this long so I hope this will inspire others to delve into it.
I absolutely loved this book.
If you are a fan of gothic fiction and you're looking for that forgotten, hidden gem, then you've found what you're looking for. This novel does strongly lack in romance, but it is beautifully written, burns slowly and oozes creepiness better than most books I've read. The narrative is confused, seemingly pulling in multiple directions but still incredibly potent. It only took around 30 pages for me to feel constant dread.
I've noticed many claim that "November wasn't that bleak," and I challenge them to reread the ending chapters. This book is beyond bleak, but the shock factor is merely implied; I only grasped what "really" happened upon multiple readings of the final chapters. I've never written a review this long so I hope this will inspire others to delve into it.
I absolutely loved this book.
November 14, 2025
Canadian author Rohan O’Grady's 1962 novel "Pippin's Journal" turned out to be one of my favorite reads of 2024, and I had been looking forward to experiencing more of her work ever since. Combining modern-day Gothic horror with an 18th century adventure story, O'Grady's truly memorable sophomore effort was surely one to leave her audience wanting more. The novel had been reissued by Valancourt Books in the spring of 2024, and so when I learned that Valancourt had recently come out with another O'Grady title, I purchased it almost immediately. Yes, the book in question is indeed her fourth of five novels, "Bleak November" (1970), and if the book has turned out to be not quite the 5-star masterpiece that I deem "Pippin's Journal," it yet remains a truly gripping and constantly surprising entertainment.
"Bleak November" was originally released in 1970 as a $5.95 hardcover by The Dial Press, and sporting cover art by one Edward Armstrong depicting a house oozing blood onto its front lawn. Rohan O'Grady was 48 at the time of the novel's release, and had already come out with "O'Houlihan's Jest" (1961), which was set in Ireland in the 1700s, as well as "Pippin's Journal" and "Let's Kill Uncle" (1963), the book for which she is probably best known, largely as a result of its being filmed by the great William Castle in 1966. "Bleak November" would be reprinted as a 95-cent Dell paperback in 1971, the same year that the British publisher M. Joseph released it as a hardcover across the pond, and featuring a unique newspaper illustration on its front cover. After this, the book would go OOPs (out of prints) for 54 years, till the fine folks at Valancourt opted to resurrect it in 2025, and featuring a striking piece of cover art by Roderick Brydon. And really, when was the last time you saw a book cover showcasing a majestic-looking house flanked by--of all things--two polar bears? Hideously enough, however, the image does indeed make perfect sense by the time we turn over the final page of Rohan O’Grady's effective chiller.
"Bleak November" takes the form of a journal that has been kept by Amy Burton ever since moving into her new home; the journal begins in March and concludes in...well, I guess I don't have to tell you which month the book wraps up in, do I? Amy works as a legal clerk, and when we first meet her is supporting her journalist husband Eric (O'Grady’s husband, Frederick Skinner, was also a journalist), who has taken time off to write a novel. The young couple (Eric is 29; Amy never deigns to tell us her age) lives in a shabby apartment and is constantly hard pressed for money, but that all changes when Eric's mother, Laura, comes into a very large sum from her long-estranged husband. With this windfall, Laura offers to buy them all a beautiful home that they had recently seen being relocated by truck (!) to a nearby estate. Laura's real estate agent, the kindly Bernard Kielty, expedites all the arrangements, and in a surprisingly short period of time, the three are ensconced in their new home. Despite their improved circumstances, Amy decides that taking in a few boarders would help their situation even more, and so Kielty comes to their rescue again. Thus, a German woman named Frau Keller soon moves in with her 14-year-old, autistic son Rudi, and another bedroom is taken by a sullen teenage girl, Elspeth Mackinnon. At first, all seems well in the new full house, with Eric working on his book in the recently constructed cellar and Amy happily shopping and redecorating. But there are intimations of trouble almost from the start. In her journal, Amy makes some passing references regarding some kind of scandal that she had once been involved in. And at the head of each chapter, she has placed a newspaper clipping that details the story of a hideous bank robbery/serial murder...surely, adumbrations of something nasty going on.
And soon enough, matters do grow more serious. Laura's friend Mrs. MacLean, a clairvoyant, is repulsed by the house's "very strange aura." A barking dog that is heard but never seen continually attempts to scratch its way into the front door. Voices and shriekings are heard at night, and a jar of fruit that Frau Keller had just prepared spontaneously explodes. Elspeth sees a face--not her own--gazing at her from a bathroom mirror, while Igor--the Russian handyman/wannabe intellectual/male chauvinist who Amy is strangely attracted to--starts looking up pertinent facts about the structure's history. Eventually, the reader is able to figure out the significance of all those newspaper clippings, and gains a horrifying glimpse at the shocking deeds that had been perpetrated in the house three years earlier. And matters only grow more grim, when Amy sees the ghostly image of a murdered 6-year-old boy in her hallway closet....
"Bleak November" is the type of book that is exceedingly difficult to discuss without revealing any of its manifold secrets, and I certainly don't want to be guilty of the cardinal sin of spoilers; my comments here will thus be necessarily abbreviated. Part of the problem for any reviewer of this novel is the fact that every one of the book's main characters--Amy, Eric, Laura, Bernard, Igor, Frau Keller, Elspeth, and Igor's pregnant girlfriend Elaina--is guilty of hiding something from the others. Yes, even Amy, our seemingly trustworthy, levelheaded narrator, appears to be keeping a secret from her prospective readers. Ultimately, she shocks us by having a sexual dalliance with Igor, after initially repulsing his advances, and we worry about her mental stability when her fantasies about having a large family become increasingly pronounced. And her story, which has been an intriguing one from the beginning, becomes even more fascinating as we slowly begin to realize that we might be dealing with a very unreliable narrator, indeed. But as I said, the less mentioned about these matters, the better.
O'Grady's book/Amy's journal keeps the reader guessing by piling on questions that are only gradually answered: What is the significance of those newspaper clippings? What is the scandal that haunts our narrator? Who has sent her a bloody baby shoe in the mail, an item so ghastly that it makes Amy faint? And, of course, what has made the Burtons' new abode the haunted house that it is today?
Readers who have previously been wowed by the author's "Pippin's Journal" will be able to discern some similarities between the two books. Both novels feature a woman who relates her story to us via a journal (Catherine Barton in the first and Amy Burton here), both books feature law clerks (a large part of Pippin's story is given to us by a court clerk in the year 1758, while Amy works as a legal clerk here), both feature a search for stolen loot, both feature houses with a murderous history, both feature women having affairs with unprincipled men, and both, unfortunately, end badly for the female narrator.
Any number of well-done scenes and sequences are given to the reader here. Among them (and again, trying to avoid spoilers): Mrs. "Mac"'s initial reaction to the house; the opening of the package containing that bloody baby bootie; the scenes with the nighttime shriekings and groanings, fruit jars exploding, and faces in the mirror; Amy's glimpse of that slaughtered 6-year-old boy in her closet; the séance that Amy and Mrs. Mac attend; and that final section of the book, about which mum is most certainly the word! To be perfectly honest, "Bleak November" is rarely what I would deem scary (well, maybe except for that closet scene!), but it is always gripping, intriguing, unsettling, and increasingly creepy. The book is surely unusual in that it features a haunted dwelling that has been physically transported from one locality to another. So yes, it would seem that a house can indeed be haunted even if it has been carried miles away from its original site; an interesting proposition, to be sure! This is most assuredly not your traditional haunted-house story. And speaking of locales and original sites, another interesting aspect of O'Grady's book is the fact that the city in which it transpires is never explicitly stated. Amy's early mention of the "West End" originally led me to believe that it must be set in London; only her later allusions to "Victory Square" and "the Pauline Johnson Memorial" made me realize that we are rather in Vancouver, where Rohan O'Grady spent so much of her own life.
For the rest of it, for those readers wondering what those darn polar bears on the front cover of this latest edition have to do with anything, once more, rest assured that they do indeed play a significant role in the proceedings here, although the horror surrounding them can only be inferred. O'Grady again proves herself to be a wonderfully readable author, with a keen ear for perfectly rendered dialogue and a knack for memorable phrases. (I love when Amy tells us, regarding 18-year-old Elspeth, "Underneath a calcimined exterior she had a youthful bloom of beauty that was breathtaking, and soft gray eyes ringed with mascara hardened to the texture of argillite.") So even if this book doesn't quite reach the exceedingly high bar set by "Pippin's Journal," it is still a very involving and masterfully executed entertainment. I could never foresee what seemingly tangential element would be popping up next.
Indeed, I only have one beef with O'Grady’s very fine work here, and it is a small one, and made even smaller by the time all is said and done. And that objection is, is it really credible that Amy would try to keep the house's evil history, and its haunted status, from her husband, for fear of his not being able to then fully concentrate on his novel? "A problem shared is a problem halved" goes the old expression, and Amy's unwillingness to share her fears with Eric only makes her own situation worse. But again, perhaps I've already said too much, and really, my heartiest seal of approval goes out for O'Grady's Gothically inflected, psychological horror tale here. My thanks to Valancourt Books again for resurrecting this one, and I sincerely hope that the enterprising folks there will be able to make "Let's Kill Uncle" available to us all very soon. Bottom line: I read "Bleak November" during a rather sunny and cheerful week in late October, and found it perfectly suitable company for the season nevertheless....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of beautifully written horror fare....)
"Bleak November" was originally released in 1970 as a $5.95 hardcover by The Dial Press, and sporting cover art by one Edward Armstrong depicting a house oozing blood onto its front lawn. Rohan O'Grady was 48 at the time of the novel's release, and had already come out with "O'Houlihan's Jest" (1961), which was set in Ireland in the 1700s, as well as "Pippin's Journal" and "Let's Kill Uncle" (1963), the book for which she is probably best known, largely as a result of its being filmed by the great William Castle in 1966. "Bleak November" would be reprinted as a 95-cent Dell paperback in 1971, the same year that the British publisher M. Joseph released it as a hardcover across the pond, and featuring a unique newspaper illustration on its front cover. After this, the book would go OOPs (out of prints) for 54 years, till the fine folks at Valancourt opted to resurrect it in 2025, and featuring a striking piece of cover art by Roderick Brydon. And really, when was the last time you saw a book cover showcasing a majestic-looking house flanked by--of all things--two polar bears? Hideously enough, however, the image does indeed make perfect sense by the time we turn over the final page of Rohan O’Grady's effective chiller.
"Bleak November" takes the form of a journal that has been kept by Amy Burton ever since moving into her new home; the journal begins in March and concludes in...well, I guess I don't have to tell you which month the book wraps up in, do I? Amy works as a legal clerk, and when we first meet her is supporting her journalist husband Eric (O'Grady’s husband, Frederick Skinner, was also a journalist), who has taken time off to write a novel. The young couple (Eric is 29; Amy never deigns to tell us her age) lives in a shabby apartment and is constantly hard pressed for money, but that all changes when Eric's mother, Laura, comes into a very large sum from her long-estranged husband. With this windfall, Laura offers to buy them all a beautiful home that they had recently seen being relocated by truck (!) to a nearby estate. Laura's real estate agent, the kindly Bernard Kielty, expedites all the arrangements, and in a surprisingly short period of time, the three are ensconced in their new home. Despite their improved circumstances, Amy decides that taking in a few boarders would help their situation even more, and so Kielty comes to their rescue again. Thus, a German woman named Frau Keller soon moves in with her 14-year-old, autistic son Rudi, and another bedroom is taken by a sullen teenage girl, Elspeth Mackinnon. At first, all seems well in the new full house, with Eric working on his book in the recently constructed cellar and Amy happily shopping and redecorating. But there are intimations of trouble almost from the start. In her journal, Amy makes some passing references regarding some kind of scandal that she had once been involved in. And at the head of each chapter, she has placed a newspaper clipping that details the story of a hideous bank robbery/serial murder...surely, adumbrations of something nasty going on.
And soon enough, matters do grow more serious. Laura's friend Mrs. MacLean, a clairvoyant, is repulsed by the house's "very strange aura." A barking dog that is heard but never seen continually attempts to scratch its way into the front door. Voices and shriekings are heard at night, and a jar of fruit that Frau Keller had just prepared spontaneously explodes. Elspeth sees a face--not her own--gazing at her from a bathroom mirror, while Igor--the Russian handyman/wannabe intellectual/male chauvinist who Amy is strangely attracted to--starts looking up pertinent facts about the structure's history. Eventually, the reader is able to figure out the significance of all those newspaper clippings, and gains a horrifying glimpse at the shocking deeds that had been perpetrated in the house three years earlier. And matters only grow more grim, when Amy sees the ghostly image of a murdered 6-year-old boy in her hallway closet....
"Bleak November" is the type of book that is exceedingly difficult to discuss without revealing any of its manifold secrets, and I certainly don't want to be guilty of the cardinal sin of spoilers; my comments here will thus be necessarily abbreviated. Part of the problem for any reviewer of this novel is the fact that every one of the book's main characters--Amy, Eric, Laura, Bernard, Igor, Frau Keller, Elspeth, and Igor's pregnant girlfriend Elaina--is guilty of hiding something from the others. Yes, even Amy, our seemingly trustworthy, levelheaded narrator, appears to be keeping a secret from her prospective readers. Ultimately, she shocks us by having a sexual dalliance with Igor, after initially repulsing his advances, and we worry about her mental stability when her fantasies about having a large family become increasingly pronounced. And her story, which has been an intriguing one from the beginning, becomes even more fascinating as we slowly begin to realize that we might be dealing with a very unreliable narrator, indeed. But as I said, the less mentioned about these matters, the better.
O'Grady's book/Amy's journal keeps the reader guessing by piling on questions that are only gradually answered: What is the significance of those newspaper clippings? What is the scandal that haunts our narrator? Who has sent her a bloody baby shoe in the mail, an item so ghastly that it makes Amy faint? And, of course, what has made the Burtons' new abode the haunted house that it is today?
Readers who have previously been wowed by the author's "Pippin's Journal" will be able to discern some similarities between the two books. Both novels feature a woman who relates her story to us via a journal (Catherine Barton in the first and Amy Burton here), both books feature law clerks (a large part of Pippin's story is given to us by a court clerk in the year 1758, while Amy works as a legal clerk here), both feature a search for stolen loot, both feature houses with a murderous history, both feature women having affairs with unprincipled men, and both, unfortunately, end badly for the female narrator.
Any number of well-done scenes and sequences are given to the reader here. Among them (and again, trying to avoid spoilers): Mrs. "Mac"'s initial reaction to the house; the opening of the package containing that bloody baby bootie; the scenes with the nighttime shriekings and groanings, fruit jars exploding, and faces in the mirror; Amy's glimpse of that slaughtered 6-year-old boy in her closet; the séance that Amy and Mrs. Mac attend; and that final section of the book, about which mum is most certainly the word! To be perfectly honest, "Bleak November" is rarely what I would deem scary (well, maybe except for that closet scene!), but it is always gripping, intriguing, unsettling, and increasingly creepy. The book is surely unusual in that it features a haunted dwelling that has been physically transported from one locality to another. So yes, it would seem that a house can indeed be haunted even if it has been carried miles away from its original site; an interesting proposition, to be sure! This is most assuredly not your traditional haunted-house story. And speaking of locales and original sites, another interesting aspect of O'Grady's book is the fact that the city in which it transpires is never explicitly stated. Amy's early mention of the "West End" originally led me to believe that it must be set in London; only her later allusions to "Victory Square" and "the Pauline Johnson Memorial" made me realize that we are rather in Vancouver, where Rohan O'Grady spent so much of her own life.
For the rest of it, for those readers wondering what those darn polar bears on the front cover of this latest edition have to do with anything, once more, rest assured that they do indeed play a significant role in the proceedings here, although the horror surrounding them can only be inferred. O'Grady again proves herself to be a wonderfully readable author, with a keen ear for perfectly rendered dialogue and a knack for memorable phrases. (I love when Amy tells us, regarding 18-year-old Elspeth, "Underneath a calcimined exterior she had a youthful bloom of beauty that was breathtaking, and soft gray eyes ringed with mascara hardened to the texture of argillite.") So even if this book doesn't quite reach the exceedingly high bar set by "Pippin's Journal," it is still a very involving and masterfully executed entertainment. I could never foresee what seemingly tangential element would be popping up next.
Indeed, I only have one beef with O'Grady’s very fine work here, and it is a small one, and made even smaller by the time all is said and done. And that objection is, is it really credible that Amy would try to keep the house's evil history, and its haunted status, from her husband, for fear of his not being able to then fully concentrate on his novel? "A problem shared is a problem halved" goes the old expression, and Amy's unwillingness to share her fears with Eric only makes her own situation worse. But again, perhaps I've already said too much, and really, my heartiest seal of approval goes out for O'Grady's Gothically inflected, psychological horror tale here. My thanks to Valancourt Books again for resurrecting this one, and I sincerely hope that the enterprising folks there will be able to make "Let's Kill Uncle" available to us all very soon. Bottom line: I read "Bleak November" during a rather sunny and cheerful week in late October, and found it perfectly suitable company for the season nevertheless....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of beautifully written horror fare....)
July 14, 2015
It was bleak, that's for sure. Bleak and boring. While I was skipping around, it did have some scary parts, which I didn't like because they were too scary. Overall, the story rambled. When you find out why the house was so cheap, you just get depressed, at least I did.
November 13, 2025
Amy is a young woman working hard to support her husband Eric’s dream of publishing his book. Her mother-in-law comes into some money and wishes to share her bounty with Amy and Eric. She buys them their dream home, and Amy soon notices that something is wrong with the house. Strange things are happening, and Amy finds herself getting to the bottom of things. Complicating matters, Igor - a brutish handyman - comes on the scene, and what about Bernard, the kindly real estate agent and attorney?
I purchased this novel based on the title. It is unashamedly gothic and 100% psychological thriller. O’Grady carries us along on a journey where we can’t be sure of what is real and what is unreal.
I purchased this novel based on the title. It is unashamedly gothic and 100% psychological thriller. O’Grady carries us along on a journey where we can’t be sure of what is real and what is unreal.
August 8, 2025
Less a gothic than a psychological horror story, "Bleak November" tells the tale of 20ish secretary Amy Burton, who moves into a Vancouver mansion after her husband Eric's mother comes into a financial windfall. The deal seems too good to be true: and sure enough and soon enough, the reasons behind this gift horse start becoming ominously clear. The house has a past—and so, the reader learns, does our heroine. O'Grady has a great deal of fun creating a distinctive, unreliable narrator with a memorable voice. Like Amy herself, the novel is not quite what the reader originally expects it will be, making for an enjoyable, if odd, read.
November 9, 2020
I didn't like it. Granted, I'm not the target audience, but it came across as boring and unoriginal. The lead characters were not relatable and came off as weak, whiny, and inept.
Did not finish the book.
Did not finish the book.
April 18, 2025
I’m not sure what to make of this book
It’s a blend of murder, robbery, mystery, haunting and mental illness. Is the house haunted? Is Laura a master criminal? What happened to Igor?
After reading this I’m still not sure
It’s a blend of murder, robbery, mystery, haunting and mental illness. Is the house haunted? Is Laura a master criminal? What happened to Igor?
After reading this I’m still not sure
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