Disturbance

Poet Clake (The Museum of Ice Cream) makes her fiction debut with an eerie tale following an unnamed narrator who has recently left an abusive relationship. Alone in her new apartment, she listens in on her neighbors through the thin walls, especially Chelsea, the teenage girl next door who is dealing with her own boyfriend problems. With the help of her friend Jess, Chelsea turns to mystical ways of handling the breakup. While the narrator finds herself drawn further into Chelsea’s drama, she also comes to believe that her new apartment is haunted. Scratching, banging, and other sounds permeate the space, along with strange smells and figures in the shadows. As the narrator, too, turns to witchcraft and joins with the teenagers in their efforts, things spiral out of control. This witchy plot benefits from allusions to its pop culture antecedents, including The Craft, and Clake’s artful juxtaposition of the narrator’s memories of her past relationship with the haunting in the present sheds light on the lingering effects of trauma. Fans of literary horror will want to snatch this up. (July)