One Book a Week (Julia Reads Books)

Finding pleasure in Horror & Fantasy

A pulse-pounding psychological thriller about a serial killer narrated by three: The Daughter, the New Girlfriend and last, the one victim he has spared THE MAN STEPS closer. He smells nice, too. You never expect evil to smell nice. He calls her Rachel. He asks her to call herself Rachel and in order to survive,…

Written by

Carra Lucia

—

×

, , , , ,

The Quiet Tenant – A novel by Clémence Michallon

Rating: 5 out of 5.

A pulse-pounding psychological thriller about a serial killer narrated by three: The Daughter, the New Girlfriend and last, the one victim he has spared

THE MAN STEPS closer. He smells nice, too. You never expect evil to smell nice.

He calls her Rachel. He asks her to call herself Rachel and in order to survive, she has.

Rachel was a blank slate. Rachel didn’t have a past or a life to get back to. Rachel could survive in the shed.
“Your name is Rachel,” he said, “and no one knows who you are.”
You nodded. Not eagerly enough. His hands left your face and grabbed onto your sweater. He pushed you into the wall, arm lodged against your neck, wrist bones embedded into your trachea. There was no air, no oxygen at all.
“I said,” he said, and the world started slipping from you, but not hearing him wasn’t an option, “no one knows who you are. No one is looking for you. Do you fucking understand?”
He let go. Before you coughed, before you wheezed, before you did anything else, you nodded. Like you meant it. You nodded for dear life.
You became Rachel.
You have been Rachel for years.
She has kept you alive. You have kept you alive.

There have been so many books and movies centered on kidnappers. On torturous bastards who take pleasure in the total control they feel when they can dictate another person’s life, wishes, dress, bathing time and food.

Countless movies about abandoned sheds in the wood, people chained to radiators, the horror coming from the single notion that in such a small space, there was no escape.

But what made this book different is that the killer and the victim, they all live in a suburban town. His lawn is manicured, he lives in a house near the shed. And yet he has kept “Rachel” captive for at least five years, without anyone knowing, without anyone even having an inkling that he was nothing more than an upstanding member of the community.

Aidan Thomas is known as a hard-working family man. He’s the kind of man who always lends a hand and has a good word for everyone. Aidan has murdered eight women and there’s a ninth he has earmarked for death: “Rachel”, imprisoned in a backyard shed, fearing for her life.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him.
You are so sorry, all the time. You are sorry his wife is dead. You are sorry, truly so, about the injustices of the world, the way they’ve befallen him. You are sorry he’s stuck with you, such a needy woman, always hungry and thirsty and cold, and so nosy at that.
Rule number two of staying alive in the shed: He’s always right, and you’re always sorry.

I loved the rules. All the rules she followed in order to stay alive. To humanize herself, to be quiet and obedient, to never fight back or give him a reason to hurt her (more). He had rituals he followed and she learned how to survive by muting that part of herself that ran a marathon, that part of herself who liked to sing songs and go to concerts, that part of herself that had a family.

At night, you dream. Visions that have followed you from the shed: You, running hard on a country road lined with trees. Behind you, the sound of his breath, the menace of his stride catching up with yours.

If everything were to happen to Aidan’s wishes, nothing in his life would have changed. He had a loving and doting wife and he was a loving and doting father to their daughter. And a side job on the side picking up women and killing them. Never in the same place, never in the same manner.

Interseded in the book, among the voice of “Rachel”, we also hear from different numbers – each victim telling her last moments with him. Some fought, some didn’t. Some were already dying.

When Aidan’s wife dies, he and his thirteen-year-old daughter Cecilia are forced to move by his in-laws. I don’t think we ever found out why his in-laws forced him to get out of their house along with their granddaughter other than their dislike of him. Why did they dislike him when everyone else seem to bend over backwards to help him out?

Aidan is modest and accepts a new housing situation from the help of the town’s judge – a connection he relishes to share with “Rachel”, just to show her that even if she did escape, no-one would believe her.

At the end of the day, everything metabolizes as sadness.

This is nothing like the kidnapping in The Black Phone (20th Century Ghosts * Joe Hill). There’s no supernatural help coming along. There’s nothing keeping “Rachel” alive then her own wits and her strong desire to be free. The book is terrifying in its own right by showing a truly human monster.

“What the fuck did you do?”
Jis hands are on you. Grabbing you, shaking you. Before him, you didn’t know—never fully grasped the concept, the devastating simplicity of someone with more physical strength than you. You had never been reduced to nothing by another person’s clenched fists. Never had your shoulders shaken so hard you could feel the whiplash take hold of your neck in real time.

The plot of the book is powered by a change brought on by the house move. Aidan brings his “tenant” with him so he can continue raping her in peace at his own leasure, under his own roof, room opposite his daughter’s. Aidan introduces her to Cecilia as a “family friend” who needs a place to stay.

His bet is on Rachel being too brainwashed and fearful to attempt to escape. But what he doesn’t know is that Rachel has been through this before (not quite this, but similar. She was roofied in New York on a night out and possibly assaulted. When she was “picked up” by Aidan, she was already through the grinder and knew that the world isn’t a pleasant place.

Your professor used to treat veterans with PTSD. One day, he explains that trauma is what happens after you see yourself die. You witness the story of your own death, and it rings so true you’re never the same again.
You don’t get it, until you do.

As Rachel tests the boundaries of her new living situation, she begins to form a tenuous connection with Cecilia. I nearly cried when she ate toast for the first time after five years of near-starvation diet.

As ceremoniously as you can without raising suspicion, you take a bite.
A sharp pain bites at the edges of your gums. The jelly is so sweet it sticks to the back of your throat. You haven’t seen a dentist in ages. You don’t want to think about the mess inside. Cavities, gingivitis, a mouth that would ooze blood if you were to floss. The toast hurts, but it’s also warm and crunchy and the butter is partially melted and you are so fucking ravenous, so hungry you forgot what it feels like to be sated. Maybe you’ve been storing hunger, somewhere between your hollow stomach and the knots of your hip bones, and you won’t be able to stop eating until you’ve made up for every calorie you missed out on in the shed.

Who were the others? One was Ceclia, the daughter. I must say the author managed to get the voice of a thirteen-year old right. She sounds so “normal”. Very few if no friends, trouble fitting in at school after her mom’s tragic passing, trouble eating and dealing with his dad’s “girlfriends” so soon. We also get to meet his next victim, or love interest, or both.

Emily, a local restaurant owner, develops a crush on the handsome widower, she finds herself drawn into Rachel and Cecilia’s orbit, coming dangerously close to discovering Aidan’s secret. But she’s so in love and so blind that she’s unaware of him, of what he truly is. Even when Emily meets Rachel and realizes that Rachel is lying about who she is, she never pushes the issue.

Told through the perspectives of Rachel, Cecilia, and Emily, The Quiet Tenant explores the psychological impact of Aidan’s crimes on the women in his life—and the bonds between those women that give them the strength to fight back. Both a searing thriller and an astute study of trauma, survival, and the dynamics of power, The Quiet Tenant is an electrifying debut thriller by a major talent.

Other books like this: