Tod Wodicka's Blog
August 31, 2015
reviews for THE HOUSEHOLD SPIRIT (updated)
THE NEW YORKER:
THE HOUSEHOLD SPIRIT, by Tod Wodicka (Pantheon). In Wodicka’s second novel, Howie Jeffries, divorced from his wife and dismissed by his daughter, rattles around in an isolated house in upstate New York. Emily Phane is the girl next door, but not in a wholesome way. An orphan brought up by her grandfather, she suffers from a disorder called sleep paralysis. After her grandfather dies, she forms a bond with Howie, and they become all things to each other (almost) while simultaneously helping each other to move on. Wodicka’s troubled characters are sympathetic, and his sentences are funny and surprising: “Lesbians loved driving one another around”; “There was a collection of beer mugs from all over the world, but mostly Milwaukee.”
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THE SUNDAY TIMES (UK):
"Oddball charm and darkly comic suburban surrealism ... Wodicka gives the story a genuinely characterful allure, humorously and poignantly revealing the depth of compassion and understanding in Howie's paternalistic relationship with the disturbed Emily, and painting a tender and intimate portrait of their inner lives that affectingly burrows under the skin ... the author's acute powers of observation ... As a fable of the mutual comfort of strangers its generosity of spirit is undeniable."
-----
ESQUIRE:
selected as one of the nine books on their SUMMER READING LIST
"The Household Spirit is singular among novels about depressed people in that it is neither boring nor depressing."
-----
THE INDEPENDENT (UK):
"Both unsentimental and strangely moving ... the feelgood factor of The Railway Children and the bitter wit of Sylvia Plath. ... comic, poignant and wholly convincing ... resolves itself in one masterful final trope, one absurd final word. The route has come full circle, attaining perfect integration between start and finish – it connects."
---------
THE FINANCIAL TIMES (UK):
"Presented through Wodicka’s irreverently funny writing, the relationship that develops between the two oddball characters is amusing and touching: Howie helps Emily sleep, while Emily brings Howie out of his shell. The Household Spirit is a heartwarming story of loneliness and connection."
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ARTFORUM:
from their 'Summer Reading: Eight artists, writers, and curators share the books they're looking forward to this season'
"...when he does sad, its the best fiction around by miles, full of tender ache and tenderer beauty."
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KIRKUS REVIEWS (STARRED):
“[A] bittersweet, deeply sympathetic sophomore effort. . . . On a rural stretch of Route 29 north of Albany, Howie lives alone, 20 years divorced and just turned 50. He’s estranged from his daughter, who’s 24, the same age as Emily, the woman he watches behaving oddly outside the house next door as the novel opens. He watched years earlier when Emily’s young mom came home pregnant, delivered, and soon after died with her own mother in a car crash, leaving the infant with her grandfather, Peppy. He watched when Emily nursed Peppy until he passed away. Then Howie saves her from a fire in her house and she moves in with him. Wodicka slowly, separately creates each of these two strong characters as he draws them together through smooth shifts in time and place. Howie’s face has a ‘gaunt, arboreal lonesomeness’ that goes well with his near-Asperger lack of affect. Emily, who is interested in the neurobiology of flora, transplants him from isolation to a society of two and beyond. Howie thinks it may be skill at fishing that helps him recognize and gently pull her out of the horrific night terrors that have plagued her sleep. . . . Wodicka’s fluid, expressive prose—dotted with quotable observations often as odd as his players—serves well his weaving of such a convincing, unexpected story from eccentricity, pain, and need. . . . Strange and rich and precisely pitched.”
--------
BOOKPAGE:
"This is an achingly beautiful and unexpectedly hilarious portrait of two deeply sad, deeply sensitive people reaching the breaking point and pulling each other back."
--------
BARNES & NOBLE REVIEW:
"...as surprising as it is satisfying.
(...) It takes a steady authorial hand, and a knack for verisimilitude, to make everything but the friendship seem plausibly run-of-the-mill. Wodicka possesses these gifts, especially when it comes to characterization and dialogue. He is strong on some of the deeply unpleasant ways that children have of talking to their parents. He can render an office party or a clumsy romantic encounter so perfectly that the reader not only feels like a fly on the wall but also prays desperately for the swatter. (...) Emily suffers from sleep paralysis and night terrors so dramatic that she tries, like the teenagers in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, not to fall asleep at all. Howie helps her navigate her nocturnal visitations. They are rendered by Wodicka with a startling poetry, making uncanny a book that spends most of its time rooted in the real, unremarkable soil of Upstate New York. (...) It is a brooding but ultimately joyful look at the way human connection works, its challenges and tiny triumphs."
--------
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE:
“The Household Spirit” manages to be wry and touching. Wodicka’s “community of two” may be small, but it is perfectly formed."
---------
TANK MAGAZINE (UK):
"Tod Wodicka’s second novel, The Household Spirit, is deeply, refreshingly uncool. It is both quiet and sneakily psychedelic: swirling around and burrowing inside the lives of its two characters..."
-------
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY:
“Touching. . . . The accounts of sleep paralysis, grief, and personal demons make for a novel well worth reading.”
-----
DOUGLAS COUPLAND:
“When I read Tod Wodicka's novel, it was as if somewhere in its core there was a light that glowed out onto me. It was an extraordinary experience. An extraordinary book.”
-----
RODDY DOYLE, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha:
“The Household Spirit is very special. There's a pleasing familiarity to it but it's also fresh, funny and unpredictable.”
---------
SADIE JONES, author of The Uninvited Guests:
“The Household Spirit is a powerful and quietly compelling novel. Tod Wodicka reveals his characters unflinchingly, in all their strangeness, and never loses sight of their frailties and loves - until we know exactly who they are and love them too. Unique and surprising, The Household Spirit is beautifully told.”
---------
CLARE WIGFALL, author of The Loudest Sound and Nothing; winner of the BBC National Short Story Award:
“An intimate study of two oddball characters, The Household Spirit is also a profound meditation upon existence, the demons that haunt our subconscious, and the fragile solace to be found in human relationships. Wodicka writes with a winningly idiosyncratic combination of brio and tenderness, and concludes his story sublimely. The Household Spirit is a book to hold dear.”
---------
NATHAN FILER, author of The Shock of the Fall (winner of the Costa Book of the Year and Betty Trask Prize):
“Rarely have I been so captivated by a novel—its compassion, wisdom, warmth. I loved it.”
--------
SHELF AWARENESS:
"Finely nuanced details and multi-layered dark comedy are Wodicka's strong suits. Howie's and Emily's alternating viewpoints reveal their vulnerabilities and enrich their well-drawn characterizations. Route 29 may be an insignificant thoroughfare in fictional Queens Falls, but Wodicka elevates its prominence, navigating a poignant, revelatory story on the road to the liberating nature of truth and friendship."
-----
THE NEW YORK TIMES:
"This oddball novel is an affecting portrait of lonely misfits."
------
WE LOVE THIS BOOK:
"The Household Spirit is a gorgeous, lonely book. ...full of tiny, heartbreaking revelations and glimpses of touching humanity. As Wodicka switches narrative from Howard to Emily and back again the reader is submerged in their strange worlds and it’s impossible not to feel like you’re on the other side of the empty kitchen table. While it may sound morose or depressing, this novel is anything but. Read and it be warm."
-------
THE BIG ISSUE (UK):
"An unpredictable and touching read."
------
GILMORE GUIDE TO BOOKS:
"Just as you used to be able to play vinyl records at a slower speed so The Household Spirit moves in a dreamy underwater way as author Tod Wodicka navigates the odd and bizarre lives of Emily and Howie. ... Wodicka amplifies the eccentricities of these characters with a style that is a gentle stream of consciousness. Sentences pour out as they might be found lying inside either Emily or Howie’s head as opposed to standing and screaming. Not for Wodicka are the staccato jabs and riffs found in other stream of consciousness works. Instead, sentences shift, ebb and flow, evoking the confusion and sadness within, not anger or frustration. This makes for beautiful gentle reading but as Howie and Emily begin to sink under the morass of their neuroses, insecurities, and fears so does The Household Spirit. The two feed off each other and at a certain point it feels as if they will drown, each clutching the other’s neck but instead, with his quietly expressive prose Wodicka rescues them and the novel regains its buoyancy. For readers who need a fast pace The Household Spiritmay not work so well but for those who are ready to slow down and slip into the joy of quirky characters who can’t get out of their own way to happiness there is much to recognize and to love about this tender novel."
THE HOUSEHOLD SPIRIT, by Tod Wodicka (Pantheon). In Wodicka’s second novel, Howie Jeffries, divorced from his wife and dismissed by his daughter, rattles around in an isolated house in upstate New York. Emily Phane is the girl next door, but not in a wholesome way. An orphan brought up by her grandfather, she suffers from a disorder called sleep paralysis. After her grandfather dies, she forms a bond with Howie, and they become all things to each other (almost) while simultaneously helping each other to move on. Wodicka’s troubled characters are sympathetic, and his sentences are funny and surprising: “Lesbians loved driving one another around”; “There was a collection of beer mugs from all over the world, but mostly Milwaukee.”
-------
THE SUNDAY TIMES (UK):
"Oddball charm and darkly comic suburban surrealism ... Wodicka gives the story a genuinely characterful allure, humorously and poignantly revealing the depth of compassion and understanding in Howie's paternalistic relationship with the disturbed Emily, and painting a tender and intimate portrait of their inner lives that affectingly burrows under the skin ... the author's acute powers of observation ... As a fable of the mutual comfort of strangers its generosity of spirit is undeniable."
-----
ESQUIRE:
selected as one of the nine books on their SUMMER READING LIST
"The Household Spirit is singular among novels about depressed people in that it is neither boring nor depressing."
-----
THE INDEPENDENT (UK):
"Both unsentimental and strangely moving ... the feelgood factor of The Railway Children and the bitter wit of Sylvia Plath. ... comic, poignant and wholly convincing ... resolves itself in one masterful final trope, one absurd final word. The route has come full circle, attaining perfect integration between start and finish – it connects."
---------
THE FINANCIAL TIMES (UK):
"Presented through Wodicka’s irreverently funny writing, the relationship that develops between the two oddball characters is amusing and touching: Howie helps Emily sleep, while Emily brings Howie out of his shell. The Household Spirit is a heartwarming story of loneliness and connection."
-------
ARTFORUM:
from their 'Summer Reading: Eight artists, writers, and curators share the books they're looking forward to this season'
"...when he does sad, its the best fiction around by miles, full of tender ache and tenderer beauty."
-------
KIRKUS REVIEWS (STARRED):
“[A] bittersweet, deeply sympathetic sophomore effort. . . . On a rural stretch of Route 29 north of Albany, Howie lives alone, 20 years divorced and just turned 50. He’s estranged from his daughter, who’s 24, the same age as Emily, the woman he watches behaving oddly outside the house next door as the novel opens. He watched years earlier when Emily’s young mom came home pregnant, delivered, and soon after died with her own mother in a car crash, leaving the infant with her grandfather, Peppy. He watched when Emily nursed Peppy until he passed away. Then Howie saves her from a fire in her house and she moves in with him. Wodicka slowly, separately creates each of these two strong characters as he draws them together through smooth shifts in time and place. Howie’s face has a ‘gaunt, arboreal lonesomeness’ that goes well with his near-Asperger lack of affect. Emily, who is interested in the neurobiology of flora, transplants him from isolation to a society of two and beyond. Howie thinks it may be skill at fishing that helps him recognize and gently pull her out of the horrific night terrors that have plagued her sleep. . . . Wodicka’s fluid, expressive prose—dotted with quotable observations often as odd as his players—serves well his weaving of such a convincing, unexpected story from eccentricity, pain, and need. . . . Strange and rich and precisely pitched.”
--------
BOOKPAGE:
"This is an achingly beautiful and unexpectedly hilarious portrait of two deeply sad, deeply sensitive people reaching the breaking point and pulling each other back."
--------
BARNES & NOBLE REVIEW:
"...as surprising as it is satisfying.
(...) It takes a steady authorial hand, and a knack for verisimilitude, to make everything but the friendship seem plausibly run-of-the-mill. Wodicka possesses these gifts, especially when it comes to characterization and dialogue. He is strong on some of the deeply unpleasant ways that children have of talking to their parents. He can render an office party or a clumsy romantic encounter so perfectly that the reader not only feels like a fly on the wall but also prays desperately for the swatter. (...) Emily suffers from sleep paralysis and night terrors so dramatic that she tries, like the teenagers in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, not to fall asleep at all. Howie helps her navigate her nocturnal visitations. They are rendered by Wodicka with a startling poetry, making uncanny a book that spends most of its time rooted in the real, unremarkable soil of Upstate New York. (...) It is a brooding but ultimately joyful look at the way human connection works, its challenges and tiny triumphs."
--------
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE:
“The Household Spirit” manages to be wry and touching. Wodicka’s “community of two” may be small, but it is perfectly formed."
---------
TANK MAGAZINE (UK):
"Tod Wodicka’s second novel, The Household Spirit, is deeply, refreshingly uncool. It is both quiet and sneakily psychedelic: swirling around and burrowing inside the lives of its two characters..."
-------
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY:
“Touching. . . . The accounts of sleep paralysis, grief, and personal demons make for a novel well worth reading.”
-----
DOUGLAS COUPLAND:
“When I read Tod Wodicka's novel, it was as if somewhere in its core there was a light that glowed out onto me. It was an extraordinary experience. An extraordinary book.”
-----
RODDY DOYLE, author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha:
“The Household Spirit is very special. There's a pleasing familiarity to it but it's also fresh, funny and unpredictable.”
---------
SADIE JONES, author of The Uninvited Guests:
“The Household Spirit is a powerful and quietly compelling novel. Tod Wodicka reveals his characters unflinchingly, in all their strangeness, and never loses sight of their frailties and loves - until we know exactly who they are and love them too. Unique and surprising, The Household Spirit is beautifully told.”
---------
CLARE WIGFALL, author of The Loudest Sound and Nothing; winner of the BBC National Short Story Award:
“An intimate study of two oddball characters, The Household Spirit is also a profound meditation upon existence, the demons that haunt our subconscious, and the fragile solace to be found in human relationships. Wodicka writes with a winningly idiosyncratic combination of brio and tenderness, and concludes his story sublimely. The Household Spirit is a book to hold dear.”
---------
NATHAN FILER, author of The Shock of the Fall (winner of the Costa Book of the Year and Betty Trask Prize):
“Rarely have I been so captivated by a novel—its compassion, wisdom, warmth. I loved it.”
--------
SHELF AWARENESS:
"Finely nuanced details and multi-layered dark comedy are Wodicka's strong suits. Howie's and Emily's alternating viewpoints reveal their vulnerabilities and enrich their well-drawn characterizations. Route 29 may be an insignificant thoroughfare in fictional Queens Falls, but Wodicka elevates its prominence, navigating a poignant, revelatory story on the road to the liberating nature of truth and friendship."
-----
THE NEW YORK TIMES:
"This oddball novel is an affecting portrait of lonely misfits."
------
WE LOVE THIS BOOK:
"The Household Spirit is a gorgeous, lonely book. ...full of tiny, heartbreaking revelations and glimpses of touching humanity. As Wodicka switches narrative from Howard to Emily and back again the reader is submerged in their strange worlds and it’s impossible not to feel like you’re on the other side of the empty kitchen table. While it may sound morose or depressing, this novel is anything but. Read and it be warm."
-------
THE BIG ISSUE (UK):
"An unpredictable and touching read."
------
GILMORE GUIDE TO BOOKS:
"Just as you used to be able to play vinyl records at a slower speed so The Household Spirit moves in a dreamy underwater way as author Tod Wodicka navigates the odd and bizarre lives of Emily and Howie. ... Wodicka amplifies the eccentricities of these characters with a style that is a gentle stream of consciousness. Sentences pour out as they might be found lying inside either Emily or Howie’s head as opposed to standing and screaming. Not for Wodicka are the staccato jabs and riffs found in other stream of consciousness works. Instead, sentences shift, ebb and flow, evoking the confusion and sadness within, not anger or frustration. This makes for beautiful gentle reading but as Howie and Emily begin to sink under the morass of their neuroses, insecurities, and fears so does The Household Spirit. The two feed off each other and at a certain point it feels as if they will drown, each clutching the other’s neck but instead, with his quietly expressive prose Wodicka rescues them and the novel regains its buoyancy. For readers who need a fast pace The Household Spiritmay not work so well but for those who are ready to slow down and slip into the joy of quirky characters who can’t get out of their own way to happiness there is much to recognize and to love about this tender novel."
December 23, 2014
BBC Radio 3 Essay - The Reluctant Shaman
Broadcast on the BBC on Dec 22, 2014 and online now, I read my essay about being attacked by demons at night. (Kind of.)
Listen here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04vd1ht
(My upcoming novel THE HOUSEHOLD SPIRIT is, in part, a fictionalization of the extreme sleep disorders I discuss in this essay.)
Listen here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04vd1ht
(My upcoming novel THE HOUSEHOLD SPIRIT is, in part, a fictionalization of the extreme sleep disorders I discuss in this essay.)
