TAG | Christopher Ransom
The Birthing House is the debut horror novel from Christopher Ransom, a writer whose promise shines through about the first two-thirds of the book, after which it falls apart a bit.
The setup is compelling — let me just quote from the inside jacket copy:
Conrad and Joanna Harrison, a young couple from Los Angeles, attempt to save their marriage by leaving the pressures of the city to start anew in a quiet, rural setting. They buy a Victorian mansion that once served as a haven for unwed mothers, called a birthing house. One day, when Joanna is away, the previous owner visits Conrad to bequeath a vital piece of the house’s historic heritage, a photo album that he claims “belongs to the house.” Thumbing through the old, sepia-colored photographs of midwives and fearful, unhappily pregnant girls in their starched, nineteenth-century dresses, Conrad is suddenly chilled to the bone: Staring back at him with a countenance of hatred and rage is the images of his own wife….
