I was so excited at the idea of a gothic by Sarai Walker, who wrote the weird and wonderful novel DIETLAND. But this ended up being just fine, which was a real disappointment given how much I was hoping for. It's got several gothic elements--big old unusual house, possibly ghosts, the shadow of death hanging over everything, a group of sisters practically cloistered--but it never really felt haunted. It just does exactly what it says it's going to do, which I guess I shouldn't fault it for and yet I am doing it anyway.
Bookended as a flashback by artist Sylvia in her 80's, we are introduced to the life she left behind as one of the Chapel girls, six daughters born into a family who made their fortune in firearm manufacturing. In this world Chapel is as well known a name as Colt or Winchester. The six sisters are close to each other and almost seem separate from the world at large, in their big Victorian house. And we know right off what is going to happen thanks to a rhyme the locals invent: the Chapel sisters, first they get married and then they get buried. And, indeed, we then proceed to watch 5 of the 6 sisters (minus our narrator, of course) die.
Bookended as a flashback by artist Sylvia in her 80's, we are introduced to the life she left behind as one of the Chapel girls, six daughters born into a family who made their fortune in firearm manufacturing. In this world Chapel is as well known a name as Colt or Winchester. The six sisters are close to each other and almost seem separate from the world at large, in their big Victorian house. And we know right off what is going to happen thanks to a rhyme the locals invent: the Chapel sisters, first they get married and then they get buried. And, indeed, we then proceed to watch 5 of the 6 sisters (minus our narrator, of course) die.