Hey everyone, it’s my first review for my first Cannonball Run! Please forgive me if this is a bit rough.
I picked up a copy of You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlman at the library. It’s a tiny volume, just over a hundred pages long. The cover notes that it is “translated from the German”. I am always a bit torn reading books translated from another language – it makes me wonder what I am missing, and if I’m really getting what the author put across in his native tongue. But the back cover states that Kehlman is the recipient of multiple literature awards, so I figured I didn’t have much to lose.
You Should Have Left flows in a conversational tone, written in the form of a journal the narrator keeps while he works on the follow-up to his smash hit film. He, his wife, and his young daughter have rented a house high in the mountains so he can finish the screenplay. The fraught relationship between he and his wife quickly comes to the fore as they struggle to maintain a happy façade for the sake of their child. Simultaneously, the narrator notices odd happenings in the house that unnerve him and undermine his faith in his sanity. Their isolation adds another level of tension, as does the revelation from a shopkeeper in the village below that the house “isn’t right” and that it is never occupied for long.
I don’t want to spoil it by writing more. You can easily read this in a weekend (although I had to read something else before bed!) Obvious parallels to The Shining are apparent, but that is not the route Kehlman takes. The story juggles a deep Lovecraftian unease, a sense of cosmic brokenness, with modern touches, like the narrator giving his daughter an iPad to soothe her as he tries desperately to remain calm himself.
I recommend this book and liked that it is incredibly creepy without relying on gore or cheap scares. Haunted house and existential, psychological horror fans alike will enjoy this one. And if it gets too spooky and you’re home alone at night, you can always put it somewhere safe!
