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A Novel
by Dane Bahr
This "impossible to forget" psychological thriller set in small town Iowa in the 1960s pits a detective struggling with his own demons against a mysterious outcast who may or may not be a serial killer (The Wall Street Journal)
James Sallis meets Mindhunter in this stylish and atmospheric noir, a midcentury heartland gothic with abounding twists and a feverish conclusion.
Local outcast Rigby Sellers lives in squalor on a dilapidated houseboat moored on the Mississippi River. With only stolen mannequins and the river to keep him company, Rigby begins to spiral from the bizarre to the threatening. As a year of drought gives way to a season of squalls, a girl is found trembling on the side of the road, claiming her boyfriend was murdered. The townspeople of nearby Oscar turn their suspicions toward Sellers.
Town sheriff Amos Fielding knows this crime is more than he can handle alone. He calls on the regional marshal up in Minnesota, and detective Edward Ness arrives in Oscar to help him investigate the homicide and defuse the growing unrest. Ness, suffering his own demons, is determined to put his past behind him and solve the case. But soon more bodies are found. As Ness and Fielding uncover disturbing facts about Sellers, and a great storm floods the Mississippi, threatening the town, Oscar is pushed to a breaking point even Ness may not be able to prevent.
"This riveting narrative is perfectly executed and begs for comparisons to William Faulkner (for the atmosphere), Cormac McCarthy (for the graphic descriptions), Eudora Welty (for the Grimmlike fable trappings), and Edgar Allan Poe (for the sense of the macabre) ... Truly eloquent and haunting ... Likely to be one of the winter's most talked-about novels." —Booklist (starred review)
"Bahr's feel for place and people, such as the creepy Sellers, creates a moody atmosphere ... Readers will be curious to see what this talented author does next." —Publishers Weekly
"An impressive debut ... A hypnotic blend of noir and goth." —Kirkus Reviews
"Evocative ... Bahr deftly moves back and forth in time; his short chapters, which feature the perspectives of different townspeople, add to the feeling that the enormity of the horror cannot be fully comprehended. The Houseboat reminded me of works by Robert Bloch strained through a more literary—but quite welcome sensibility." —The New York Times Book Review
"Bahr writes like a demon, with a range from deadpan humor to living horror ... Its haunting sequences may prove impossible to forget." —Wall Street Journal
"It'd be easy to mistake Rigby Sellers—the drifter at the center of Dane Bahr's The Houseboat— as an invention of Cormac McCarthy or William Gay, but it'd also be a mistake. Bahr has created a literary miscreant all his own, and for all the fright Rigby conjures—and there's plenty of it—he's as much a foil for the supposedly civilized small Iowa town he haunts as he is a spectacle unto himself. This book is as eerie and dark as a Mississippi river slough, and just as rank. You don't want to miss it." —Peter Geye, author of Northernmost
"The Houseboat will unsettle you, scare you, and break your heart. It's grimly authentic, bleak and beautiful. Its people wear the faces we see in our mirrors, and the ones we glimpse in our most terrifying dreams. It's a distinctly American gothic mystery—perfect reading for the Lovecraftian times we are living in." —Molly Gloss, author of The Jump-Off Creek and The Hearts of Horses
This information about The Houseboat was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dane Bahr was born in Minnesota. He is the author of The Houseboat and the forthcoming novel, Stag. He lives in Washington State with his wife and dog, watching his sons and orchard grow.
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