Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Published in Sweden in 2008; published in translation by Thomas Dunne Books on October 11, 2011

The Earth and its creatures consist mostly of water. When water gets its evil on, it is a formidable and dangerous element. Even without a supernatural infestation, oceans (particularly at night) are frightening to behold. In Harbor, John Ajvide Lindqvist imagines the waters of the ocean as a diabolical force.

In 2004, a little girl named Maja disappears while visiting a lighthouse with her parents, Anders and Cecelia. Her disappearance on the small, isolated island of Domarö is impossible to explain. When Anders returns to the island a couple of years later, a series of eerie events suggest that Maja is trying to contact him. Anders later learns that Maja is not the first island resident to have disappeared, and that the island harbors secrets from generations past.

Anders is one primary character; another is Simon, an aging magician and escape artist who has lived on Domarö for years. In 1996, Simon pledges himself to a Spiritus, a dark little creature that resembles a centipede. When Simon drools on the Spiritus, he gains some of its life force; holding the Spiritus in his hand empowers Simon. Despite Simon's connection to the island, its life-long residents have kept a secret from him: the secret of the sea. It is the secret that animates the novel and that Anders must eventually understand if he is to make sense of Maja's disappearance.

As the plot develops, John Ajvide Lindqvist surrounds his characters with menacing images: a cardboard cutout of an ice cream man seems vaguely sinister; the wind-swept sea conveys a feeling of dread; the distant growl of a moped signals danger. Even swans are best avoided on Domarö. This is artful storytelling.

Unfortunately the images of horror are more interesting than the actual horror. The problem, I think, is that there are just too many different manifestations of evil: the dead return to life in ghost-like fashion, the living are possessed in zombie-like fashion, a malevolent force dwells in the deep ... the riot of horror themes becomes a bit much, particularly with the addition of the Spiritus. While the Spiritus is the most imaginative of the supernatural forces at play in Harbor, its existence (and the role it plays at the novel's end) is almost too convenient. Having voiced that small complaint, however, I must give Lindqvist credit for tying it all together at the novel's end.

Harbor works best as a novel of psychological horror -- the horror not just of losing a child, but of a parent's realization that he never really knew his child. As a tale of supernatural horror, the novel is creative but not particularly frightening. The lengthy story is nonetheless entertaining. There are stories within stories in this unusual novel: stories of smuggling and stagecraft and love and Nordic adventure. Often the stories provide background, explaining, for instance, why two kids who went missing came to be treated as island outcasts and how Anders' father died. The stories of individuals confronting fears and hardships in an isolated environment showcase Lindqvist at his best, and provide sufficient reason to read Harbor.

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