Bloomsbury
Review by Brian Tanguay
As anyone who has raised a daughter knows, alliances and jealousies among teenage girls can be fierce and unpredictable. In The House Where Nothing Hurts, Ali Fountain draws the reader into a circle of privileged suburban teenagers who live in large homes and drive their own cars to school. Most of the girls play volleyball at the local high school. Among them are the identical twins, Leah and Laura, Christian, the wild one, and Corrie, an outsider at the beginning who becomes integral to the multi-layered plot.
There’s a twenty year gap between the events Leah narrates. Now married with a son, and pregnant with what she’s convinced are twins but her pediatrician assures her is only a single baby, Leah is drawn back to her old neighborhood, and in particular the Highland house, scene of so much drama and horror. The house has a character all its own and is reputed to be haunted, which accounts for why Leah and Laura’s mother, a realtor, was never able to sell it. Most of the novel takes place inside the spacious interior or around the swimming pool. Once the twins swipe the keys to the house it becomes the place where the girls and a few boys meet up after volleyball games to drink, do drugs, and swim in the pool. Strange things begin happening immediately, as if the house was waiting for someone to play with. Lights flash on and off, doors open and close of their own accord, and the entire interior expands or contracts. Every time Melissa enters the house she disappears from the group. Where does she go? But more baffling, and ominous, is that what happens in the house stays in the house. When Corrie slashes her palm the deep wound completely heals overnight, leaving no trace; even the blood that spilled on the carpet is gone. Two girls, both named Jennifer, jump into the pool from a second floor balcony, one lands in the water and the other hits the concrete. Blood leaks from this unfortunate Jennifer’s ear, and her arm is mangled, but in short order she’s sitting up, dazed but no worse for wear.
As if it possesses the power of divination, the house treats each girl differently. Christian and Leah aren’t susceptible to the house’s healing power, while Corrie is so sensitive to the supernatural vibe that she vomits a black substance the consistency of tar. Fountain skillfully weaves together supernatural and quotidian elements, getting the balance right and maintaining narrative tension all the way until the conclusion.
