Come Closer by Sara Gran
Come Closer by Sara Gran, first published 2003 in the USA by Soho Press, Inc. First published 2005 in the UK by Atlantic Books. This is not your traditional Gothic novel, however it includes several Gothic tropes and is akin to Charlotte Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper (1892). Amanda is a thirty-four year old architect, seemingly happy with her career, her home and her husband, Ed. But is she? The story begins with a report Amanda has submitted at work being mysteriously substituted for vicious insults about her boss. She begins to hear strange tap-taps in her home, a loft apartment a little out of the main part of the city. She bickers with her husband when he returns home late. She also has strange dreams about a beautiful woman with tangled hair and pointy teeth. As Amanda's behaviour deteriorates - renewing a smoking habit, shop-lifting and burning her husband with a cigarette - she begins to think she is being possessed by a Biblical demon, but that would be ridiculous, wo...