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….

The book sets all of the above into motion beautifully, separating Joanna from Conrad and introducing other characters to interact with him and send the story in different directions.  However, this plot device soon becomes the books Achilles’ heel.  Plot strands go off in different directions and don’t really meet up at the end, or even get resolved satisfactorily on their own.

If you haven’t read the book and you like surprises, steer clear of the spoilers below, covered in black.  Or, mouse over the block to read them.

On a less spoiler-ish level, I will just say that the ending takes the delicate balance of psychological and supernatural that the book has built, and shoves it very hard to one direction, and not to good effect.  I honestly don’t really know how to interpret the ending, and judging by the Amazon.com reviews, I’m not alone.

Even having said all that, Ransom is a skilled and imaginative writer.  At only around 300 pages, you can read this book straight through and hang on every page.  It’s only after you finish, when you look back, that the inconsistencies become more jarring.

Overall, I find The Birthing House to be a worthy read.  I recommend grabbing it at your local library or waiting for the paperback — if Ransom goes on to become a megastar, you can always complete your hardcover collection later at your local Half Price Books or the like.

Despite this book’s flaws, I think that Christopher Ransom has a chance to be the Clive Barker to Joe Hill’s Stephen King for this new generation of horror writers.  Whether he’ll fulfill that promise remains to be seen — I hope to find that his next book delivers from start to finish.