The Household Spirit by Tod Wodicka

Tod Wodicka has created a very different relationship story about two very different people. First of all there’s fifty-year-old Howie Jeffries who is painfully shy. He has a smile that makes young children cry, ‘the last face on earth’, according to his ex-wife. Since his divorce twenty years before, he lives alone on Route 29, reading books on fishing, and occasionally ineptly Facebooking his fierce daughter, an artist in New York.

Then there’s Emily Phane, Howie’s young neighbour, who suffers from a sleeping disorder. Emily stays up all night, filling her house with plants. Since the death of her grandfather, she seems to be slowly falling apart. When she sets fire to her house, Howie has to overcome his shyness to look after her, and remarkably each of them discovers they are able to help each other with their problem, Howie learning to communicate, while Emily learns to sleep.

Wodicka has written a quirky novel full of brilliantly unusual characters, and shows a depth of understanding for people’s mental states, particularly Emily’s sleep paralysis which gives her the most terrifying nightmares. The plot cranks up a notch or two when Howie’s workmates throw him a surprise party on his 30th anniversary with GE, and when we discover what his daughter has really been up to when her mother thinks she’s with Howie.

There is plenty of dark humour in The Household Spirit, but there is empathy as well, plus a splendid ending set in a blizzard-struck New York City. This is a decidedly different read about people living on the outskirts, about understanding our neighbours and communicating with the world at large.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: The Household Spirit