The Necromancers, by Robert Hugh Benson

This novel is a little hard to describe, but I’ll take a stab at it.

Okay. It starts with Laurie Baxter, a wealthy upper-class British idiot, falling in love with Amy, the village grocer’s daughter.

Ah! So it’s a P.G. Wodehouse-type novel.

Not quite. Amy dies of a sudden illness, and Laurie is utterly crushed.

So it’s a romantic tragedy, then?

No. Laurie happens to meet a spirtualist, who claims that he can communicate with the soul of Amy from the other side.

So…it’s either a dark comedy (rich idiot falls in with spiritualist hucksters), or something that Arthur Conan Doyle might have written towards the end of his life?

Still no. Laurie starts attending seances, and actually makes contact with Amy. At least, something that he thinks is Amy. But it’s not Amy.

It’s something much, much worse.

“The Necromancers”, you see, is a horror novel.

And an effective one, too – the final half of the book is quite tense. I believe Benson was a Catholic priest, and so the book is very Catholic, which is put to excellent use. Many of the Catholics in the book say they believe in the supernatural and the devil, but it’s only a nominal belief. Their reactions when they actually encounter supernatural evil are quite vivid.

Benson’s writing is a bit hard to get into – he’s very fond of florid descriptions, and tends to discuss his characters’ emotional states in minute detail. Nevertheless, I liked the book, and since Benson’s been dead for quite some time, you can legally get the book for free off the Project Gutenberg site.

-JM