The Apparition Phase: Shortlisted for the 2021 McKitterick Prize

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I loved his ideas about cultural deceleration… the notion that culture hasn’t really moved on since about the mid-1990s. And in the attic, looking at the ‘evidence’ that the photograph was faked, their schoolmate has a truly terrifying ‘possession’ moment, in which she tells them: “You did photograph a real ghost, despite everything. Ancient timbers crack like knuckles, the rooms are filled with an oppressing and brooding silence, almost an air of expectation, like it is waiting to be brought back to life, a place of 'weird emotional textures. A small group of people join together to prove the existence or not of a phantom from the 17th century.

The Apparition Phase by Will Maclean | Goodreads The Apparition Phase by Will Maclean | Goodreads

Chills ran down my body as I read the remaining sentences of the last page, it was a truly heart stopping moment. I’m still in touch with one of the people who had that experience with me, and we still say: “What was that? It’s the 1970’s when we meet 13 year old twins, Tim and Abigail (Abi), who from a very young age have had a fascination with the paranormal, though it could be argued that it’s become more of an unhealthy obsession.

I wondered if Will Maclean could pull all the disparate strains together and was gratified by a very accomplished ending. He suddenly seemed to remember the initial plot towards the end when the whole thing fizzled out with a rushed disappointing flop.

The Apparition Phase – a review – Horrified The Apparition Phase – a review – Horrified

While the ending essentially did give a plain answer as to what happened in the first portion, it was a letdown on how it was revealed. Maclean’s writing style fits the horror genre perfectly and it was a great debut novel, not to mention it sets the bar very high for him on his next book! There are traces here of Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger; the way in which Tim falls in love with Yarlings, and everything it represents for him, is very reminiscent of Waters’ Faraday. The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

I couldn't help but thinking of the Adams family children when I read the physical descriptions of Abi and Tim, intelligent twins with enquiring minds and a passion for the macabre. I was waiting for it to tie back to the first part (which, by the way, is the only bit that even matched the description and subsequently what brought me to read it). Up until the 1970s, I think there was the idea that the paranormal consisted of things that science had yet to explain – but, one day, it would. That word, although meaningless on its own, is part of a piece of writing precisely 1000 words long. But that’s the only example I can think of in the past 20 or 30 years where that approach was taken.