As much as possible, I try to avoid being scared in the “creeped out” sense.
And yet there’s something undeniably compelling when a story manages to shake your hold on what is and isn’t possible, what is and isn’t real.
“The Sofa,” by Sam Munson, managed to walk this line and really, really creeped me out.
In general, I do not seek out this experience in my reading. Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allen Poe are wonderful writers whose stories I’ve read, and yet even thinking about “The Haunting of Hill House” or “The Tell-Tale Heart” will cause my pulse to tick up.
I had a good childhood friend who had his birthday parties at the local forest preserve. His father excelled at ghost stories and he told one at the culmination of each party, just as dusk was falling. I experience a faint queasiness at the mere memory. More recently, novels like Samanta Schweblin’s “Fever Dream” and Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” series had me gripped, ready to believe scary and impossible things are actually happening.
These narratives traffic in what’s known as “the uncanny,” a sense that the ordinary and mysterious are in close proximity to each other, and because of this, your sanity may be in a more tenuous place than you would hope.
“The Sofa” is a masterful example of conjuring this effect. I did not particularly enjoy reading this book because it kept creeping me out, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“The Sofa” is the story of Mr. Montessori, husband to Mrs. Montessori and father to two boys, Josep, a teenager, and a younger boy who is exclusively referred to as his “younger son,” rather than by name.
After a long day at the beach, he and his family slip into the house, not bothering to turn on the lights. In the morning, Montessori is awakened by his younger son, who bids him to come to the living room. He sees that his old comfy couch has been replaced with a very different sofa, “narrow and shallow, high up on tall, yellow legs with volute feet, and covered with a yellow-green striped fabric.”
No one has broken in. It must be a prank, but it is inexplicable and vaguely unsettling. The police say they will be on the lookout for the couch, but at least Montessori has a replacement, right?
Things get stranger over time. The downstairs toilet mysteriously flushes and the sink runs, one of the knobs covered in frost. Montessori has visions of a man in a bowler hat, a figure that appears on a drawing from his younger son that has been on the fridge and that no one in the household will claim to having added. Montessori experiences incredible difficulties trying to get a replacement for the original sofa and haulers contracted to take the new sofa away cannot seem to come through on their promises.
Montessori pursues his one lead, a name on a slip stitched to the yellow-green couch, MEERVERMESSER, always seeming to encounter a man with a “large mole near his mouth that resembled a fly. Bristly, as if iridescent.”
I swear to you, I am creeping myself out just recalling the book. Maybe I am particularly vulnerable to this effect, but through his use of language, repetition, and pacing, Munson weaves a spell.
There are two ways to read this book. One as I did, in bits, putting it down for a breather when the tension is too much. The other is all the way through — it is a slim 134 pages, doable in a sitting — trying to see how much you can take.
John Warner is the author of books including “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.” You can find him at biblioracle.com.
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “Great Big Beautiful Life” by Emily Henry
2. “Kill for Me, Kill for You” by Steve Cavanagh
3. “Atmosphere” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
4. “Margo Has Money Troubles” by Rufi Thorpe
5. “All Fours” by Miranda July
— Julie H., Chicago (on behalf of her book club)
Here’s a book I periodically champion because I think it’s great. I also think it will leave the book club plenty to discuss, “Morningside Heights” by Joshua Henkin.
1. “The Caretaker” by Ron Rash
2. “Strangers on a Train” by Patricia Highsmith
3. “Why We Die: The New Science of Aging” by Venki Ramakrishnan
4. “The God of the Woods” by Liz Moore
5. “The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
— Mark L., Deer Park
One of my favorites from earlier this year that has me still thinking about it feels like a good fit for Mark, “The Passenger Seat” by Vijay Khurana.
1. “The Shoemaker’s Wife” by Adriana Trigiani
2. “Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano
3. “Birnam Wood” by Eleanor Catton
4. “The Great Divide” by Cristina Henriquez
5. “Exhibit” by R.O. Kwon
— Alice R., Highland Park
I hope Alice will connect with the spiky humor and sneaky emotion of Weike Wang’s “Rental House.”
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.
