The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian

The Night Strangers

by Chris Bohjalian

It begins with a door in a dusky corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire. A door that someone has sealed it shut with thirty-nine enormous carriage bolts.

The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin daughters. Chip was an an airline pilot until he was forced to crash land on a remote lake the jet he was flying after double engine failure. Thirty-nine people aboard Flight 1611 died that day - a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door . . .

Meanwhile, his wife is increasingly troubled about the women in this sparsely populated village, self-proclaimed 'herbalists'. Why do they seem excessively interested in her young daughters. Emily is terrified, too, that her husband's grip on sanity seems to have become increasingly tenuous, in the wake of the devastating plane accident.

Reviewed by ibeforem on

4 of 5 stars

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Chip Linton is an airline pilot who is forced to bring his plane down in Lake Champlain after a bird strike takes out both of his engines. Sound familiar? It should, as hero captain Sully Sullenberger is the first specter in this novel. His feat is firmly planted in Chip’s mind as he points his plane towards the lake. Unfortunately, the results are much different.

What follows is a record of Chip’s unraveling, hastened by an unfortunate move to a small New Hampshire town where his house isn’t the only thing that may be haunted. Being familiar with what small town New England feels like, Bohjalian has once again brought that experience to life. When your neighbors number few, is it possible for them to be just a little too friendly?

For me, the most interesting thing about this book is the way it was written. Bohjalian uses the second person point of view, where the narrator is referred to as “you”, when he writes from Chip’s point of view. It’s a very rarely used point of view, mostly because it’s so difficult to use well, and I was skeptical at first. Through a brief twitter exchange with the author (@ChrisBohjalian), he revealed that it hoped it would convey immediacy and disorientation, and I think he was extremely successful. You are drawn straight into Chip’s head, and even when you know that the things he sees and thinks are not possible, even crazy, you believe them as much as he does.

This ended up being my favorite Chris Bohjalian novel in years, and I’ve read almost all of them! Don’t go into it thinking you know how it will all turn out – you couldn’t be more wrong.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 2 May, 2012: Finished reading
  • 2 May, 2012: Reviewed