Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Imprint unknown (2009), Paperback
Description
Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award One of Granta 's Best Young British Novelists From the acclaimed author of Boy, Snow, Bird There's something strange about the Silver family house in the closed-off town of Dover, England. Grand and cavernous with hidden passages and buried secrets, it's been home to four generations of Silver women--Anna, Jennifer, Lily, and now Miranda, who has lived in the house with her twin brother, Eliot, ever since their father converted it to a bed-and-breakfast. The Silver women have always had a strong connection, a pull over one another that reaches across time and space, and when Lily, Miranda's mother, passes away suddenly while on a trip abroad, Miranda begins suffering strange ailments. An eating disorder starves her. She begins hearing voices. When she brings a friend home, Dover's hostility toward outsiders physically manifests within the four walls of the Silver house, and the lives of everyone inside are irrevocably changed. At once an unforgettable mystery and a meditation on race, nationality, and family legacies, White is for Witching is a boldly original, terrifying, and elegant novel by a prodigious talent.… (more)
Media reviews
Some have compared Helen Oyeyemi to Henry James, and at first glance this seems a strange connection. White is for Witching is an unconventional novel, less a structured story than an extended mood piece, a rumination on horror as personified in a disintegrating personality. Even so, White is for
Show More
Witching captures some of the characteristic Jamesian ambiguity, the openness to multiple interpretations that has kept literary scholars debating, more than a century after it was written, whether The Turn of the Screw is really a ghost story, or just a metaphorical haunting that reminds us of the dark corners of everyday existence.... Oyeyemi earns my praise for infusing even the most outlandish details in this story with a plausible psychological resonance. I may walk away from this book wondering whether it isn’t more a hallucination than a structured narrative. But I could imagine reading accounts of just this sort in collection of psychiatric case studies. And this is more than just the chronicle of a medical condition. It is a legit horror novel. After all, what could be scarier than a ghost story where you can’t escape…because you are the ghost? Show Less
Helen Oyeyemi’s eerie third novel features a young woman who has a strange eating disorder and lives with her twin brother and widowed father in a haunted house across the street from a cemetery full of unmarked graves. On the surface, this setup might appear best suited to the young adult
Show More
fiction market, but Oyeyemi (who was born in Nigeria and educated in England) knows that ghost stories aren’t just for kids. And “White Is for Witching” turns out to be a delightfully unconventional coming-of-age story. Show Less
White Is for Witching is written so elliptically that it can be hard to follow. It opens with four pages of poetic, disjointed writing that makes almost no sense until you have finished the book - which would be fine if the remaining 241 pages swept you off your feet, but the whole novel is sadly
Show More
unengaging.... This is a ghost story without much of a ghost, or a story. And, like a spectre with no one to haunt, it seems destined to fade soundlessly away. Show Less
The book is structured around multiple voices—including that of the house itself—that bleed into one another. Appealing from page one, the story, like the house, becomes extremely foreboding, as the house is “storing its collapse” and “can only be as good as” those who inhabit it. The
Show More
house’s protective, selfish voice carries a child’s vision of loss: in the absence of a mother, feelings of anger, betrayal and bodily desire replace the sensation of connection. Unconventional, intoxicating and deeply disquieting. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member upstairsgirl
This book made me feel like I was losing my mind.
Oyeyemi is doing things with prose that ordinary people only dream about doing, weaving Nigerian folktales into stories of violent, irrational racism so full of hate it survives even death and stories of complicated, completely dysfunctional
The story is terrifying and weird - everything you'd expect from a psychological thriller - but without gore or graphic nastiness. The ordinary and the supernatural crowd each other relentlessly throughout the novel, leaving the reader with the confused, dreamy, nightmarish feeling of slowly losing a handle on reality, much like the characters.
It's excellently written, and challenging without being daunting. Definitely one of the better books I've read in 2010, despite what other readers have said about how confusing it is. It's not a light read, but it's a worthwhile one.
Oyeyemi is doing things with prose that ordinary people only dream about doing, weaving Nigerian folktales into stories of violent, irrational racism so full of hate it survives even death and stories of complicated, completely dysfunctional
Show More
familial relationships from which there is simply no escape. She slips in and out of different characters' consciousnesses quickly and easily, expecting the reader to keep up on multiple trips to the buffet of unreasonable narrators. The story is terrifying and weird - everything you'd expect from a psychological thriller - but without gore or graphic nastiness. The ordinary and the supernatural crowd each other relentlessly throughout the novel, leaving the reader with the confused, dreamy, nightmarish feeling of slowly losing a handle on reality, much like the characters.
It's excellently written, and challenging without being daunting. Definitely one of the better books I've read in 2010, despite what other readers have said about how confusing it is. It's not a light read, but it's a worthwhile one.
Show Less
LibraryThing member alexann
Written in a style that is both abstract and stream-of-consciousness, White Is for Witching is the story of Miranda Silver, a young woman who suffers from pica. She lives with her father and a housekeeper in their large house in Dover, which her father runs as Bed and Breakfast. Unfortunately the
Show More
house seems to be filled with evil, although this evil is seldom spelled out in a way that is comprehensible. Wordy and hard to follow, it will appeal only to certain readers. Show Less
LibraryThing member sturlington
Miranda Silver is the ultimate goth girl, pale with jet black hair, waif-thin due to an eating disorder that compels her to eat chalk--she could have stepped from the pages of an Edward Gorey book. She has a rather creepy relationship with her twin brother, Eliot. Her mother was recently violently
This is quite a strange book, very slippery, difficult to nail down what the story is exactly. The writing is more interesting than the story anyway, slipping almost without delineation between different narrators and different times. The effect is hallucinatory, dreamlike. Of course, the question in these stories is always, what is real? I think at heart this is a real haunted-house story; there are some supposedly sane characters who are also affected by the house and who sensibly get themselves out. Like a funhouse in a carnival, the house here is full of illusions, shifting its interior space in order to confuse and ensnare its occupants, but it is conscious, it is acting; it is not just a figment of a mentally disturbed mind. At least, that's not how I read it. On a second read, I might change my mind.
I have seen this book compared to one of my favorite ghost stories, The Haunting of Hill House, and I have no doubt that Jackson inspired Oyeyemi. The main characters in White Is for Witching may have different names, but they clearly correspond to the ghost hunters of Hill House. Hill House too was ambiguous; it also wondered whether houses could be alive, whether they could want someone and act accordingly. I think Jackson's novel is the cleaner story, but Oyeyemi here plays with Jackson's ideas with interesting results. I have been reading more Nigerian authors lately, and it seems to be a real deficit to not be more familiar with the folklore of that area of Africa; I know just enough to recognize that I'm missing quite a bit, which I think would greatly deepen my understanding of and appreciation for this book.
Show More
killed, leading to Miranda having a mental breakdown, and her father is lost in his own dream world of grief. Despite all this, Miranda is accepted to Cambridge, where she meets and eventually becomes lovers with a refreshingly normal girl named Ore, a black girl adopted by white parents. Oh yes, Miranda also lives in a malevolent, conscious house that harbors the spirits of her female ancestors and greedily wants her as well. She probably should have known better than to bring Ore home.This is quite a strange book, very slippery, difficult to nail down what the story is exactly. The writing is more interesting than the story anyway, slipping almost without delineation between different narrators and different times. The effect is hallucinatory, dreamlike. Of course, the question in these stories is always, what is real? I think at heart this is a real haunted-house story; there are some supposedly sane characters who are also affected by the house and who sensibly get themselves out. Like a funhouse in a carnival, the house here is full of illusions, shifting its interior space in order to confuse and ensnare its occupants, but it is conscious, it is acting; it is not just a figment of a mentally disturbed mind. At least, that's not how I read it. On a second read, I might change my mind.
I have seen this book compared to one of my favorite ghost stories, The Haunting of Hill House, and I have no doubt that Jackson inspired Oyeyemi. The main characters in White Is for Witching may have different names, but they clearly correspond to the ghost hunters of Hill House. Hill House too was ambiguous; it also wondered whether houses could be alive, whether they could want someone and act accordingly. I think Jackson's novel is the cleaner story, but Oyeyemi here plays with Jackson's ideas with interesting results. I have been reading more Nigerian authors lately, and it seems to be a real deficit to not be more familiar with the folklore of that area of Africa; I know just enough to recognize that I'm missing quite a bit, which I think would greatly deepen my understanding of and appreciation for this book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member katiekrug
I don’t really know what to say about this odd little novel. It tells the story of Miranda Silver, a British girl afflicted with all sorts of problems from the physical to the mental, her twin brother Eliot, the house they inhabit in Dover, England, and the ghosts of their mother, grandmother,
Show More
and great-grandmother. The house is a malevolent force and so much a character in the book that it gets its own narrative voice. There are, in fact, multiple narrators here, and most of them are unreliable. The narrative perspective changes often, as does the time, so that the reader is left to figure out if the story has advanced or moved back. In reading other reviews, I found some of them contradictory to each other and to what I thought had happened – Oyeyemi obviously is playing with time and perspective and the reader never does get a handle on the story as a whole. Reading this book is like trying to read through a prism or pieces of fractured glass. I felt like I was always missing something, some fragment that would make sense of it all. That being said, the imagery in the book is wonderful – very rich and textured, and the sense of foreboding and horror build nicely. I struggled with the first half but settled in for the second and was rewarded. Though still confused. Show Less
LibraryThing member ScoLgo
A well-written book with which I did not fully engage. Oyeyemi writes rather beautifully but I found the first half to be a bit of a slog as I kept waiting for the story to develop. I'm sure this will be a worthwhile book for many readers but it simply did not grab me.
LibraryThing member shanjan
What do haunted houses, eating disorders and twins have in common? This novel. Other than that I'm left scratching my head over how these things had any relationship in this story.
I felt like there were some interesting elements in this novel that had some potential. However none of these elements
I was left feeling like this was a first draft of a potentially interesting story that needed to be reworked and significantly edited in order to reach its full potential.
I felt like there were some interesting elements in this novel that had some potential. However none of these elements
Show More
were threaded together effectively create a cohesive novel. Instead of working these components together they seemed to be disjointed and tangential. I was left feeling like this was a first draft of a potentially interesting story that needed to be reworked and significantly edited in order to reach its full potential.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Debra_Armbruster
Fantastic and disturbing, _White Is For Witching_ was an exceptional read; my favorite in recent memory! Spooky, neo-Gothic, fairy tale - none of these descriptor truly do it justice! You'll just have to read it for yourself.
LibraryThing member ASKelmore
I’m supposed to like this book. I like things that are a bit bizarre. I like England (where it is set). And everyone seems to rave about both this author and this book. So I’ve clearly – like Fortune Smiles – missed something.
And yet…
I should have known. The blurb on the front, from The
Did you catch that? “Persevering.” Apparently I was in for a bit of a slog. A book that was going to make me work for the reward. Which makes me wonder – do I like having to work to enjoy what I’m reading?
I don’t think I do. I’m not looking for Dr. Seuss, or short sentences. I think a book can be complex and challenging without dragging and feeling like work. This book was the latter, not the former. And even though I did make it to the end … I super did not care. I wasn’t shocked by the ending, I assumed it would end the way it did the entire time.
What am I missing?
I realized this morning that I could not picture anything the author discusses in this book. The home that features as a character in the book – I have not a clue what it looks like, and nothing about the author’s words helped me build that image in my mind. I don’t know what Miri (one of the main characters) looks like, nor do I have any picture in my eye of any of the other characters. The only setting I could sort of picture was part of the chunk set at Cambridge, because I’ve been there.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this before. Is this the author’s goal – to make the reader just feel like she is reading words, not creating any sort of picture or story? If so, then huzzah! Success! But that’s not what I’m looking for in fiction, at all. I can’t recommend the book, although I am somewhat looking forward to book club (the reason I read this) tonight, to see what the hell I’m missing here.
And yet…
I should have known. The blurb on the front, from The
Show More
Boston Globe, is “Profoundly chilling…a slow-building neo-Gothic that will leave persevering readers breathless.”Did you catch that? “Persevering.” Apparently I was in for a bit of a slog. A book that was going to make me work for the reward. Which makes me wonder – do I like having to work to enjoy what I’m reading?
I don’t think I do. I’m not looking for Dr. Seuss, or short sentences. I think a book can be complex and challenging without dragging and feeling like work. This book was the latter, not the former. And even though I did make it to the end … I super did not care. I wasn’t shocked by the ending, I assumed it would end the way it did the entire time.
What am I missing?
I realized this morning that I could not picture anything the author discusses in this book. The home that features as a character in the book – I have not a clue what it looks like, and nothing about the author’s words helped me build that image in my mind. I don’t know what Miri (one of the main characters) looks like, nor do I have any picture in my eye of any of the other characters. The only setting I could sort of picture was part of the chunk set at Cambridge, because I’ve been there.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this before. Is this the author’s goal – to make the reader just feel like she is reading words, not creating any sort of picture or story? If so, then huzzah! Success! But that’s not what I’m looking for in fiction, at all. I can’t recommend the book, although I am somewhat looking forward to book club (the reason I read this) tonight, to see what the hell I’m missing here.
Show Less
LibraryThing member edspicer
I didn’t finish the book because I couldn’t get through it. I’m not the type to give up on a book, but I couldn’t stay into the book. It looked interesting and it needed a review, but I couldn’t get through it. AHS/JS
LibraryThing member mrn945
This was a very different ghost story.
First, I'm not sure if it was a ghost story, or a book about individuals with mental disorders. Granted, it may not matter - but here are the facts. Once upon a time, a family of four lived in a lovely old house in Dover, England. The mother was vivacious and
Early on in the book, the mother dies. This sparks a series of emotional and mental events in both of the twins which accumulate in the daughters final descent into madness. Or ghostly possession, which ever you prefer.
The daughter, Miranda, has pica - a disorder which makes her eat unconventional things - like plastic and chalk. The disease, we hear, is common in her family. Or is it? Perhaps it's the house which cases the disease, not genetics.
The house plays a rather interesting role in the novel. It is treated like a character unto itself. A devious, dangerous, and possibly lying character, but a character nonetheless. To be honest, the parts where the house speaks sent shivers down my spine. I don't know if it was the tone the house spoke in, or the idea of a house controlling a family but it was a very effective tool.
The second part of the story which was incredibly interesting was the way it was written. The flow in the novel was very unique. At the beginning, I was a little unnerved by the way the novel would switch so quickly from one voice to another with literally a single word. However, as I started reading more, the device made more and more sense.
This was a unique and special novel. Was it unnerving? Yes. Was it engrossing? Yes. At the end of the day, I would wholly recommend this book to anyone wanting something a little different to read.
First, I'm not sure if it was a ghost story, or a book about individuals with mental disorders. Granted, it may not matter - but here are the facts. Once upon a time, a family of four lived in a lovely old house in Dover, England. The mother was vivacious and
Show More
adventurous, the father content, the twins beautiful and bright. Of course, things are not always as they appear.Early on in the book, the mother dies. This sparks a series of emotional and mental events in both of the twins which accumulate in the daughters final descent into madness. Or ghostly possession, which ever you prefer.
The daughter, Miranda, has pica - a disorder which makes her eat unconventional things - like plastic and chalk. The disease, we hear, is common in her family. Or is it? Perhaps it's the house which cases the disease, not genetics.
The house plays a rather interesting role in the novel. It is treated like a character unto itself. A devious, dangerous, and possibly lying character, but a character nonetheless. To be honest, the parts where the house speaks sent shivers down my spine. I don't know if it was the tone the house spoke in, or the idea of a house controlling a family but it was a very effective tool.
The second part of the story which was incredibly interesting was the way it was written. The flow in the novel was very unique. At the beginning, I was a little unnerved by the way the novel would switch so quickly from one voice to another with literally a single word. However, as I started reading more, the device made more and more sense.
This was a unique and special novel. Was it unnerving? Yes. Was it engrossing? Yes. At the end of the day, I would wholly recommend this book to anyone wanting something a little different to read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 2* of five
The Book Report: Teenaged girl from a long line of off-kilter female ancestors loses her mother after developing a rare eating disorder. Clueless males make things worse. Her house is haunted. Blah blah blah.
My Review: I cannot believe I wasted eyeblinks on this boring, vapid
In short, nothing new, except the little dullard has an affliction called “pica,” which makes her eat non-biological non-foodstuffs. Oh goody good good, another girl with an eating disorder that makes her Different from others, isolated, misunderstood! How refreshing! Such a bold storytelling choice. Why, NO ONE does that! Oh, and then there's the aforementioned clueless maleness. My sweet saints, why has no woman thought to use *that* in her books before?
Two stars for introducing me to pica. Apart from that, I'd've settled on 1/2-star and a much longer, more vituperative attack on the pointless, me-too, competently written snore-inducingly dull book.
The Book Report: Teenaged girl from a long line of off-kilter female ancestors loses her mother after developing a rare eating disorder. Clueless males make things worse. Her house is haunted. Blah blah blah.
My Review: I cannot believe I wasted eyeblinks on this boring, vapid
Show More
girl. Her mother couldn't stand her to the point of being gone most of the time, and I say go mom. Dad's a selfish, clueless cretin. In short, nothing new, except the little dullard has an affliction called “pica,” which makes her eat non-biological non-foodstuffs. Oh goody good good, another girl with an eating disorder that makes her Different from others, isolated, misunderstood! How refreshing! Such a bold storytelling choice. Why, NO ONE does that! Oh, and then there's the aforementioned clueless maleness. My sweet saints, why has no woman thought to use *that* in her books before?
Two stars for introducing me to pica. Apart from that, I'd've settled on 1/2-star and a much longer, more vituperative attack on the pointless, me-too, competently written snore-inducingly dull book.
Show Less
LibraryThing member MayaP
Probably the hardest book I’ve ever tried to review. White is for witching is an enticing, complex and often perplexing read. The writing is exquisite but a little too intoxicated with itself for my taste, the twisty, high-metaphorical style making the story far more confusing than it really
I also thought the multiple viewpoints were a mistake and added to the fog of confusion; a single voice would have worked better. Slightly more sympathetic characters would have been nice too – everyone was just a bit too dislikeable.
Helen Oyeyemi is a terrific writer but in this book she seemed to be trying too hard for freshness, novelty and cleverness. I think White is for Witching would have been a far better novel if she’d just told her story without all the smoke and mirrors.
Show More
needs to be. I felt throughout that the writer was reaching to be elusive and mysterious when she really didn’t need to be – the wonderful writing and the story were enough.I also thought the multiple viewpoints were a mistake and added to the fog of confusion; a single voice would have worked better. Slightly more sympathetic characters would have been nice too – everyone was just a bit too dislikeable.
Helen Oyeyemi is a terrific writer but in this book she seemed to be trying too hard for freshness, novelty and cleverness. I think White is for Witching would have been a far better novel if she’d just told her story without all the smoke and mirrors.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SChant
Tiptree longlist 2010. Can't see how it got onto the longlist in the first place. It's more lke a lit-fic "middle-class angst" type story about a girl with a eating disorder than anything specifically SF&F. Plus doesn't say much about gender to me.
LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
Would have had another half star but the story lost me right at the end, with Sade and Ore gone I'm not sure I really cared about any of the others. Enjoyed it anyway, beautifully told.
LibraryThing member margarita.gakis
This book was very interesting. The shifting POVs were difficult at first but really led the reader on a journey. Even the way the prose was laid out on the pages was very intriguing and thought provoking. I found at the end of the book, I had to go back and re-read the first few pages and they
Definitely an interesting read. Very haunting in places.
Show More
really meant more to me in a different way, knowing how the book ends. Definitely an interesting read. Very haunting in places.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jen.e.moore
This was a compelling if slightly opaque book, one that will probably reward re-reading to pick out all of the layers and details.
Miranda is a troubled young woman; she has pica, the compulsion to eat things that are not food, and rejects her pastry-chef father's attempts to get her to eat
Although this was a short book, it took me a while to read; there's a lot to digest (pardon the pun). It has a lot to say about the prejudices we inherit, and how hard it is to shed them; and the things we'll do to keep ourselves in (what we perceive to be) safety.
Miranda is a troubled young woman; she has pica, the compulsion to eat things that are not food, and rejects her pastry-chef father's attempts to get her to eat
Show More
normally. Her mother, a photographer, died while on a trip to Haiti, and Miri hasn't been the same since. Her twin brother wants to help but doesn't know how, especially when she's accepted to Cambridge and he's not. The house they live in, their great-grandmother's house, wants to keep Miranda at any cost, which is not the same as protecting her. When Miranda brings home her Black girlfriend from college, the thin barrier separating the reality of the house from the reality of the rest of their lives starts to slip. Although this was a short book, it took me a while to read; there's a lot to digest (pardon the pun). It has a lot to say about the prejudices we inherit, and how hard it is to shed them; and the things we'll do to keep ourselves in (what we perceive to be) safety.
Show Less
LibraryThing member AnaraGuard
Didn't like it as well as I thought I would. I appreciate the fluidity of the author's writing, the fairytale aspects of the story, and the shifting among various points of view. But I was troubled by the ending, which made me wonder what the intention of the entire novel was. Left dis-spirited but
Show More
can't say more: spoilers! Show Less
LibraryThing member Beammey
**I received this book in a GoodReads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.**
This is one of those books that has a bit of everything for everyone, but this cover is gorgeous. I really, really liked this story. It had just the right amounts of everything and the characters were easy to relate
This is one of those books that has a bit of everything for everyone, but this cover is gorgeous. I really, really liked this story. It had just the right amounts of everything and the characters were easy to relate
Show More
to. I would keep reading more books in this series and I would recommend this book. It's a fun, quick read. 4 out of 5 stars. Show Less
LibraryThing member WhiskeyintheJar
I read this for the Diverse Voices square for Halloween Bingo
White is for witching, a colour to be worn so that all other colours can enter you, so that you may use them.
Creepy, intriguing, mysterious, frustrating, and melancholy, White is for Witching had a very strong start that sagged a bit in
Miranda can’t come in today Miranda has a condition called pica she has eaten a great deal of chalk—she really can’t help herself—she has been very ill—Miranda has pica she can’t come in today, she is stretched out inside a wall she is feasting on plaster she has pica try again:
To me, the house (and any real or imagined non-human inhabitants) is the sun with Miranda being Mercury, her twin brother Eliot as Venus, and their father Earth. Secondary characters such as a friend Miranda makes at college called Ore would be a moon of Mercury and the housemaid Sade could be a comet. This is an odd way to place the characters but I don't want to spoil too much of the story but still give an idea of the story's placement of characters.
The way this story is written and structured is different, povs from mainly Miranda, Eliot, and the house (yes, the house has a pov), flow in and out with blips from Sade, Ore, and maybe a couple other minor ones I am forgetting. You need to be on your game to fully understand who is talking but even then, things can get confusing with possible unreliable narrators and not knowing what is real and mental health issues.
The horror of the story is that there is a house that is possibly haunted, maybe by a soucouyant (a witch in Caribbean folklore), maybe by a curse on the female line of a family, and maybe simply a daughter that lost her mother and is spiraling down a mental health destructive hole. This story centers on women, their strengths and weaknesses; Eliot plays a good sized role but he is still clearly on the sidelines along with his father who is ineffectual in his drowning grief for his wife.
They were naked except for corsets laced so tightly that their desiccated bodies dipped in and out like parchment scrolls bound around the middle. They stared at Miranda in numb agony. Padlocks were placed over their parted mouths, boring through the top lip and closing at the bottom. Miranda could see their tongues writhing.
The beginning had me captured with Eliot leading us into the story about how his mother died and how his sister is withering away because she seems only able to eat chalk. From Eliot's point of view it seems more like a mental health issue with occasional povs from the house and Miranda popping in to make you believe in the shiver going up your spine. The middle starts to transition to more of Miranda's point of view, her struggles with her mental health and the house, along with looks at Miranda's female ancestors.
When Miranda leaves the house for a little while is when the story started to lose me a bit. Sade and Ore get added to the story, I thought Ore was too late of an additive and even though she brought an outside look and probably worked to more definitively answer the mental health or truly haunted question, I missed the atmosphere of the house and Eliot with Miranda.
“I’m to go home. The house wants me,” she cried. The moonlight made her look blue. It made her look as if she was dead. She opened my window and sat herself on the ledge; she dangled her bare legs over it. We were four floors up.
I don't know how many have watched the tv series The Leftovers but this story gave me the same kind of feelings. Majorly intriguing start, with questions, mysteries, and interesting characters everywhere, only to maybe out write themselves and end up leaving a lot up in the air in a way that devalues the story.
As far as giving you the heebie jeebies, this will definitely do it, some scenes had me looking hard into dark corners in my house. As far as the characters sticking with me, probably not, as they didn't quite become fully fleshed out to me. I do know I would love to see this made into a limited series, Netflix get on that, the psychomanteum room scenes would be chilling good.
That was the first and last time I’ve heard my own voice.
White is for witching, a colour to be worn so that all other colours can enter you, so that you may use them.
Creepy, intriguing, mysterious, frustrating, and melancholy, White is for Witching had a very strong start that sagged a bit in
Show More
the middle and then ultimately puttered out into its own enigmatic mysteries.Miranda can’t come in today Miranda has a condition called pica she has eaten a great deal of chalk—she really can’t help herself—she has been very ill—Miranda has pica she can’t come in today, she is stretched out inside a wall she is feasting on plaster she has pica try again:
To me, the house (and any real or imagined non-human inhabitants) is the sun with Miranda being Mercury, her twin brother Eliot as Venus, and their father Earth. Secondary characters such as a friend Miranda makes at college called Ore would be a moon of Mercury and the housemaid Sade could be a comet. This is an odd way to place the characters but I don't want to spoil too much of the story but still give an idea of the story's placement of characters.
The way this story is written and structured is different, povs from mainly Miranda, Eliot, and the house (yes, the house has a pov), flow in and out with blips from Sade, Ore, and maybe a couple other minor ones I am forgetting. You need to be on your game to fully understand who is talking but even then, things can get confusing with possible unreliable narrators and not knowing what is real and mental health issues.
The horror of the story is that there is a house that is possibly haunted, maybe by a soucouyant (a witch in Caribbean folklore), maybe by a curse on the female line of a family, and maybe simply a daughter that lost her mother and is spiraling down a mental health destructive hole. This story centers on women, their strengths and weaknesses; Eliot plays a good sized role but he is still clearly on the sidelines along with his father who is ineffectual in his drowning grief for his wife.
They were naked except for corsets laced so tightly that their desiccated bodies dipped in and out like parchment scrolls bound around the middle. They stared at Miranda in numb agony. Padlocks were placed over their parted mouths, boring through the top lip and closing at the bottom. Miranda could see their tongues writhing.
The beginning had me captured with Eliot leading us into the story about how his mother died and how his sister is withering away because she seems only able to eat chalk. From Eliot's point of view it seems more like a mental health issue with occasional povs from the house and Miranda popping in to make you believe in the shiver going up your spine. The middle starts to transition to more of Miranda's point of view, her struggles with her mental health and the house, along with looks at Miranda's female ancestors.
When Miranda leaves the house for a little while is when the story started to lose me a bit. Sade and Ore get added to the story, I thought Ore was too late of an additive and even though she brought an outside look and probably worked to more definitively answer the mental health or truly haunted question, I missed the atmosphere of the house and Eliot with Miranda.
“I’m to go home. The house wants me,” she cried. The moonlight made her look blue. It made her look as if she was dead. She opened my window and sat herself on the ledge; she dangled her bare legs over it. We were four floors up.
I don't know how many have watched the tv series The Leftovers but this story gave me the same kind of feelings. Majorly intriguing start, with questions, mysteries, and interesting characters everywhere, only to maybe out write themselves and end up leaving a lot up in the air in a way that devalues the story.
As far as giving you the heebie jeebies, this will definitely do it, some scenes had me looking hard into dark corners in my house. As far as the characters sticking with me, probably not, as they didn't quite become fully fleshed out to me. I do know I would love to see this made into a limited series, Netflix get on that, the psychomanteum room scenes would be chilling good.
That was the first and last time I’ve heard my own voice.
Show Less
LibraryThing member GracefulPhoton
An interesting book to read. Early on it adopts a nightmarish feeling, both in the sense that adjacent things don't always have a clear relationship to one another, and in the sense that a menacing feeling seems to be hovering at the edge of your vision, and only passes in front of your eyes for
A book that feels very appropriate to the current political discourse, despite the fact that it was written a decade before my reading.
Show More
brief, but striking moments. A book that feels very appropriate to the current political discourse, despite the fact that it was written a decade before my reading.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
Would have had another half star but the story lost me right at the end, with Sade and Ore gone I'm not sure I really cared about any of the others. Enjoyed it anyway, beautifully told.
LibraryThing member Lemeritus
So beautifully written that I'm happy to forgive the ending which seemed deflated. Delivers on many levels - ghost story, coming of age, even political analysis. And, did I mention? beautifully written.
LibraryThing member ctkjs
This was a tough one to get through. It wasn't long, but it was difficult to get used to the writing style. Each section took an adjustment to figure out who was now telling the story. I thought it was going to be really scary, but I felt like the even remotely scary parts were only briefly touched
Show More
upon and when they were they were a little confusing. I didn't feel very invested in the story or the characters so I really had no feelings either way about their outcomes. Show Less
LibraryThing member JessicaReadsThings
My first response to this book is, "Huh, what?" I don't get most of it. It's beautiful and lyrically written. It clearly pulls from the Gothic haunted house tradition all while being thoroughly modern. It's a story I should love and one that I do appreciate. But I found myself lost at times.
Show More
Sometimes when a book loses me, I can just go with it, but the disorientation was too much here. The narrative tends to turn points of view without much warning (well, that's unfair, there is a visual cue). And once I've gotten into one person's voice, I suddenly find myself in another's. It was a little frustrating. I still appreciate that the book is beautifully written, but I just couldn't love it. Show Less
LibraryThing member akblanchard
White is for Witching tells the strange story of Miranda, a teen whose rare eating disorder causes her to ingest odd substances such as chalk and plastic. She lives in a house with a mind of its own, among the ghosts of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Her foodie father,
I am not sure I understood the many folkloric references and heavy symbolism. For me, this novel did not add up to a coherent whole.
Show More
marijuana-smoking brother, and Cambridge-student lover try to rescue her, but in the end, they are no match for the powerful forces that want to claim her. At least that’s what I got out of this rather opaque storyline. I am not sure I understood the many folkloric references and heavy symbolism. For me, this novel did not add up to a coherent whole.
Show Less
Awards
Shirley Jackson Award (Nominee — Novel — 2009)
Somerset Maugham Award (2010)
Otherwise Award (Long list — 2010)
Language
Original publication date
2009-06-23
ISBN
0330469673 / 9780330469678
Local notes
In a vast, mysterious house on the cliffs near Dover, the Silver family is reeling from the hole punched into its heart. Lily is gone and her twins, Miranda and Eliot, and her husband, the gentle Luc, mourn her absence with unspoken intensity. All is not well with the house, either. Generations of women inhabit its walls. And Miranda, with her keen sense for spirits, is more attuned to them than she is to her brother and father.