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Review by Alice Cary
If Cookson Selway had been in Nashville last fall, no doubt he would've been one of the first to spot Mother Teresa's likeness in that now-famous cinnamon bun -- the "Nun Bun." Cook, the protagonist of Dennis McFarland's latest novel, A Face at the Window, freely admits he's the kind of person who sees the face of Jesus in tortillas. In fact, after spotting the likeness of an infant in an X-ray of his back, he embarrasses his wife at dinner parties by hauling out the film for all to see.
On the surface, Cook's life seems to be in perfect order. At 43, he's a retired restaurateur who looks after his investments, while Ellen, his wife, writes mysteries. They live in an antique house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and have a daughter who has just gone off to boarding school.
Problems, however, simmer underneath the veneer. Cook's father was jailed for murder and Cook himself, though now clean and sober, took refuge for many years in drugs and alcohol. As if these ghosts from the past aren't enough, Cook has always been prone to extrasensory experiences, most recently a vision of a ghostlike dog.
Real trouble starts, however, when Cook and Ellen decide to spend a month in London so Ellen can research her next book. They book a flat at the Hotel Willerton, recommended by their stockbroker as "something out of Masterpiece Theater."
The midnight horror show is more like it. The flat is haunted, and Cook is one the few who can see its apparitions. In 1936 a young girl and her uncle mysteriously fell to their deaths from the fourth-floor window; now their spirits, along with that of a strange boy, both entertain and torment Cook.
These spirits are surprising, unpredictable beings, and Cook is determined to ferret out the details of their tragedy, so determined, in fact, that he turns his back on Ellen, eventually endangering their marriage.
The heroes of each of Dennis McFarland's widely praised novels are "detectives of the heart" whose explorations of a death at hand lead them to confront their past -- and, likewise, their future.
McFarland deftly weaves Cook's philosophical musings on the nature of reality, addiction, and marriage with the drama of his ghost story. The result is a compelling, haunting book.
Alice Cary is a frequent contributor to this publication.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.