This is the 4th of Mr. McNaughton's novels to be published by Wildside Press. Unfortunately, unlike the others, this book as far as I can tell is only available in a nice hardcover with a pretty high list price, $37.95. It is discounted on Amazon, but not much. Page count was 209, pretty slim for the cost, but is McNaughton's final novel, I think. Originally the text was published in 1982 as Satan's Surrogate; used copies of this are quite expensive in their own right and I never saw a copy. Unlike Satan's Love Child, which was a pornographic version of Gemini Rising, I do not believe Satan's Surrogate had any objectionable material; the author reports that the text was substantially altered and we may regard THATW as his final thoughts on the text. Production qualities are good; cover art by Jaime Oberschlake was pretty good but did not blow me away.

Where Gemini Rising, Downward to Darkness and Worse Things Waiting had clear Lovecraftian motifs and themes, The House Across the Way was not in the same vein. Do not expect that it is part of the same series of stories. It owes a little bit more to Robert Chambers, with some character names, a maid named Cassilda for example, and a few place names. I have not made a study of reading Chambers' fiction like I have Lovecraft's, but I think there is no other big debt to Chambers beyond this. Similarly, in what I think is a nod towards some of McNaughton's favorite writers, there are place names from Lovecraft: the Whateley Library and the Pickman Museum.

The plot is extremely complicated and the truth only gradually becomes apparent to some of the characters. There are so many characters with such complicated relationships and points of view, and wild twistings of time, that they defy synopsis. The Otherworld is occupied by...the Others, who might be considered as Faerie. Not in the sense of lightness and good, Tolkienesque elves, but dark and incomprehensible, capricious and malicious. They love to torment humans and control them through both their uncontrolled passions and their dreams. The title house of the story occupies an important point of overlap between these realities which makes life fraught with menace for the current occupants. The Eldritch King has dark and mysterious reasons for manipulating humans, as he/it has done through the centuries.

None of this is clear to the characters in the book who fumble through their disorienting lives trying to grasp what is going on. Like in all of Mr. McNaughton's novels that I have read, all the threads come together to make perfect sense of the complex tapestry by the end. Along this wild ride, McNaughton's considerable gifts are on display: he takes us inside the minds of the characters; when it is their point of view, the world is clearly seen out of their eyes. I love the way he lets us sink into the characters' skins. Dialogue is sharp, the plot is propulsive and descriptions of the gory consequences of losing yourself to the Others are deftly written. The denouement was a fitting conclusion to a majestic effort. I was very glad to have read The House Across the Way and highly recommend it to all fans of dark fantasy literature. What a great loss that we will have no more such novels from Mr. McNaughton's pen! ( )