A reader’s dilemma. I’m not a huge fan of gothic novels and the current trend for them leaves me a little bit cold. One of my favorite modern authors has a new book out. It’s a gothic novel. What should I do? I read it, of course, Kate Mascharenhas has written two excellent books, one of which was a little bit gothic, in any case. For her latest novel, Hokey Pokey, the gothic is turned up to eleven, and there’s a good slice of horror thrown in too. This is an on-trend novel, given a unique styling by an author who continues to beguile and surprise.
What is Hokey Pokey by Kate Mascarenhas?
Birmingham (England, Not Alabama) 1929. The end of the roaring twenties. Nora Dickinson checks into the art deco Regent Hotel. She’s been sent to tail the opera singer, Berenice Oxbow. Oxbow’s husband is sure she is having an affair. A snowstorm seals the hotel. Nobody can leave. Stories materialize, secrets are revealed, and desires are slaked. Then the bodies start appearing.
Nora finds a dog in her room. A beast that sends her into a tailspin, directly into the path of the woman she has been tracking. As reality shifts, we learn of the connections the pair share back in Zurich, and the dark truths that Nora has been hiding from. Interspersed between the events in Birmingham are flashbacks to Nora’s childhood and her time in Switzerland, both undergoing psychoanalysis and studying the same herself. As Nora’s history evolves we start to see supernatural/folk-tale elements woven into the book. Why couldn’t Nora’s mother leave her house, and how come Nora can mimic others perfectly?
Why Read Hokey Pokey?
Kate Mascarenhas is a chartered psychologist. This is evident if you read either the excellent Psychology of Time Travel or Hokey Pokey. As well as being set in Birmingham we see flashbacks to Berenice and Nora’s time in Zurich and their experiences of psychoanalysis. A backdrop of therapeutic psychology underpins the novel.
Against this backdrop, Mascarenhas delivers a truly creepy story. Is this a horror novel? Arguably so. It definitely had me discomfited at times. It fits deftly into the space occupied by classic gothic horror novels, with undertones (and indeed overtones) of classics like Dracula or Jekyll and Hyde. It also has an Agatha Christie feel to it. Roaring twenties, myriad guests trapped in a hotel, and an amateur sleuth hoping to solve the case.
The revelations of the book, however, are significantly more macabre and grisly than anything dreamt up by the queen of crime and the denouement is decidedly more other-worldly than anything Christie created.
I very much enjoyed the European folktale elements in the book. Much as in The Thief on the Winged Horse, Hokey Pokey opened up my eyes to my ignorance of the subject matter at hand. In Winged Horse it was the world of dollhouses, here it is the folk tale. I have no idea, whether the folk elements in the book are based on real folk tales, but they very much felt like they were. There’s a deep sense of European gothic permeating the story; the sense of a dark forgotten history. Reminiscent of the folk-tale leanings of Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
Whilst the novels are different in tone, they both are steeped in European folklore and give you the sense of the rich earthy nature of oral storytelling through generations of Europeans. They’re books that make you feel small as you read them; overwhelmed by centuries of stories.
Hokey Pokey, once again, demonstrates Kate Mascarenhas’ beguiling storytelling. You’re never quite sure what Hokey Pokey is about until almost the very last page. She’s an author that I would happily read anything she produces and I can’t wait to see where she takes us next.
If you’d like to pick up a copy of Hokey Pokey, you can do so, here in the US, and here, in the UK. (Affiliate links for Bookshop.org are given for the links in this post.)
If you enjoyed this review, check out my other book reviews, here.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review.
