There is a perennial debate that occurs in the literary world, as regular as spring tulips but a good deal more frequent, concerning the thorny issue of genre. Critics often talk about literary versus commercial fiction as if it's a bit like smoking or non-smoking: you're one or the other. Writers themselves rarely sign up to this polarisation: most are writing the books that are in their hearts, to the best of their abilities and then handing them over to their publisher, whose job it is to apply the label.
In an interesting exercise, the once-famous horror movie company Hammer, in partnership with Arrow books, has taken three well-known literary voices and given them the challenge of writing genre fiction, contributing to a series of books loosely based on a horror theme in the old-fashioned Hammer sense, ie psychological horror rather than the torture-porn version that does depressingly well in film. Helen Dunmore and Jeanette Winterson have already produced Hammer novellas and now it's the turn of Julie Myerson, with a gripping tale of a honeymoon couple in the Caribbean being haunted by spirits and strange events that turn out to have their origins very close to home.
Rachel and Dan arrive on a beautiful island for the holiday of a lifetime newly wed, newly pregnant but even before they check in to their luxurious hotel, the locals are warning Rachel that her husband is in danger. Rachel is soon haunted by poltergeists, nightmares and a malign figure with soil in his face and hair. When staff at the hotel begin to be murdered, the threat becomes much more concrete.
Myerson couldn't be a better choice for this sort of book: her novels have been full with ghosts, real and imagined, often as functions of a heroine's disordered mind. Her first book, Sleepwalking, was published 20 years ago but I can still remember the chilling image of a dead grandfather looming over a newborn baby's cot as the mother frantically bats the apparition away. Sleepwalking was as much about inheritance as spirits the terrifying thought that when we produce our own children we bequeath them, unwittingly, the way in which we were raised ourselves. The Quickening may be a specific commission but it is still Sleepwalking's grandchild, parented by Myerson's intervening novels, particularly Laura Blundy and The Story of You.
The main concession Myerson has made to the demands of genre is the rather perfunctory opening to this book, a short preamble where Rachel's loving but controlling husband makes the surprise announcement of their forthcoming trip. Dan is a frighteningly realistic portrayal of the kind of man who loves surprising his wife, not to delight her but to keep her constantly off-guard. When he presents her with a ring he hides it in a fist and invites her to tap. She chooses the left hand and he gleefully announces, "Wrong as usual".
This scene and their arrival in the Caribbean are a little too speedy, as though Myerson has been told to get to the horror as quickly as possible, but her trademark attention to detail soon evidences itself. In their air-conditioned hotel room, Dan empties something out of his shoe, "round and bright and shiny and red" a cherry tomato from the salad he ate on the aeroplane. It's an early clue that strange and unlikely things are happening. When the phantom with soil in his hair appears, he is all the more sinister because he shows up in bright hot sunshine next to a sparkling sea.
At times it seems that the real horror in this book, of which the ghosts are only metaphors, is the fear of being married to the wrong man. But as Rachel's behaviour becomes more deranged, the reader is forced to consider whether Dan is lovingly concerned for an unstable wife, or a murderous psychopath. Myerson keeps the reader guessing until the very end and provides no easy answers in a deceptively simple read that will compel horror fans while being just as satisfying to her own readership.
Louise Doughty's new novel, Apple Tree Yard, will be published by Faber in June
