The Séance by Joan Lowery Nixon
A Novel
Title: The Séance
Author: Joan Lowery Nixon
Publisher: Harcourt
Publication Year: 2004*
ISBN: 9780152050290
Rating: 3 stars
*Originally published in 1980
This is another book that I’m revisiting from my childhood collection. It comes from the past complete with my ninth grade English teacher’s phone number on a sticky note in the back.
At first glance, this book looks and sounds scary. That’s probably what drew me to it in the first place and why I was excited to read it again. There are elements that are supposed to be scary, I think, but it’s more a mystery book than a horror book.
Seventeen-year-old Lauren lives in a small town in East Texas with her Aunt Melvamay. They also share their home with seventeen-year-old Sara, a foster child Aunt Mel has recently taken in. Despite being the same age, attending the same school, and having a difficult family past in common, Lauren and Sara are not friends. Sara is wild and fast. She sneaks out to meet boys and sometimes even grown men. What’s more than that is that Sara is beautiful and everyone loves her, something Lauren, who is plain looking, greatly envies.
Sara finds out that Roberta, the new girl in school, says she has psychic powers and is able to contact the dead. Sara convinces Roberta to host a séance with a few girls from school and in a rare moment of camaraderie, Lauren agrees to attend. When the séance starts and the lights are out except for a candle, Sara says something isn’t right in the room, she screams and falls, putting out their only light source in the process. When the girls get past their hysteria and get the lights back on, Sara is gone. All of the doors and windows are locked from the inside, so no one is sure how Sara got out.
Sara’s body turns up in the swamp a few days later, and the police suspect murder. Everyone in town expects that Lauren knows more about Sara’s disappearance than she’s letting on because the girls lived together. Lauren is scared that the murderer also thinks she knows more than she does, and she hopes to find the murderer before the murderer comes back for her.
This is a short book and a quick read. It almost feels more like a novella than a novel. Some of the parts feel kind of basic and quick and many of the characters could be interchangeable because they aren’t fleshed out and realistic. Despite having almost no memory of this book, I saw the twist coming way before it did. Lauren also states facts earlier that are supposed to come as a surprise during the twist. This book is rated for ages twelve and up though, and if I kept the book this long, I really did feel that it was more engrossing and shocking the first time around.
I also felt like the book panders to Texas stereotypes. A lot of the characters have typecast country names like Luemma, Melvamay, and Jep. Many of the townsfolk are upset that the girls would have a séance because that would invoke the devil. The book was originally published in 1980, so it might have been alluding to the beginning of the Satanic Panic but it is couched in a Bible Belt-esque religious fervor. Nixon did live in Texas as an adult, so this might be accurate to her experience, but if I were from Texas, I might be a bit upset about the portrayal of the Texans in this book.
Like I said, I didn’t really feel like the majority of this book was scary, but I was reading it on a dark and stormy night and as Sara fell and put out the candle during the séance, my power went out. I would be lying to you if I said that didn’t get my fight or flight going. When I was reading William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, the toilet in my apartment spontaneously cracked and fell apart, so while the power outage was scary, it had nothing on that. Other than that and a brief tense scene toward the end, the book is only mildly suspenseful at best. However, despite the accents not being in the right place for that, I kept reading the title as Séancé (like rhyming with Beyonce), which also made it hard for me to take it seriously. I can’t tell you why that got stuck in my head, but if I had to read it like that, you do too.
I think this book probably works better for readers in the twelve to fourteen range. A lot of YA translates well to adult audiences, but this book feels like it’s more on the middle grade side of YA. This could be a fun book to read together with the young reader in your life and a dramatic reading could definitely up the tension.
Fun fact: my picture for this post has a Ouija board and the book cover itself features a non-branded spirit board, but during the séance, the girls only use Roberta, a candle, and a vase of flowers. There is no board at all. I definitely didn’t notice that during my first read, but now I can’t help but wonder why the cover designer and the team that approved the cover went with that image. It is for sure a compelling image, so I stuck with it.