The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Started: October 6, 2026
Completed: October 19, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: My good friend Catherine
Media: Audio
Review:
The descriptions in this book are rich, "[a] grandfather clock...its mechanism rusting, seconds turned to dust on its pendulum...." I think I could go back and find hundreds of equally artistic descriptions of everyday things. These descriptions set the scene from ornate to simple and decrepit to elegant. Everything in the house seems to have a covering of dust and the representations of that dust is done many different ways.
The wind breathes or it slices through the forest. Nature and otherwise inanimate objects are given subjectivity and actively pursue the actions that are normally passively experienced ("a breath of wind" or something less direct like "a cutting wind"). This occurs throughout the book making the environment itself seem at least mildly malevolent (e.g., the wind does not caress, it slices; music does not pour out of the gramophone, it spews from it). I think that if I did a more careful study, I would find that the house itself does not experience decay but is decaying as though that were a chosen action.
The story line is even better. It is a sort of groundhog day reiteration of a single day but with the protagonist literally moving to a different person each day. Why are the characters here? How can they break the loop? Even more delicious as the layers unwrap. I especially liked the way that Baron comes to understand his own back story and how that flavors and nuances looking back on the story--details that seemed odd shift into focus. A very well written book.
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