The Graveyard Apartment

July 25, 2016
Reviewed by Cherie Priest
It’s been 30 years since The Graveyard Apartment was published in Japan, and now this new translation aims to bring the supernatural stylings of Mariko Koike to a 21st-century English-reading audience. This claustrophobic ghost story does lay down the creepy atmosphere and hit the form’s best notes, but I suspect the reception will be mixed—largely because the book could be at least a third shorter, and its protagonists are real jerks.
Teppei and Misao Kano are seeking a fresh start in a largely vacant apartment building called the Central Plaza Mansion. Sure, it’s surrounded on three sides by an old cemetery and it overlooks a temple with a crematory, but the price is right and the building is practically brand new. Immediately upon arrival, their pet bird dies, their small daughter complains of ghostly visits, and their dog behaves weirdly. One by one, the neighbors move out, and the scary incidents escalate.
From a high-level genre standpoint, it’s satisfyingly paint-by-numbers—which I don’t say as a criticism, or intend as a backhanded compliment. I’m a big fan of ghost stories, and I don’t want every one of them to reinvent the wheel. I love a good wheel.
However, there’s a lot of filler, and the narrative is almost entirely tell, no show. Too often the action slows down for a lengthy aside on a topic such as civic planning or urban real estate, and the characters routinely indulge in hefty interior monologues that mostly underscore what terrible people they are.
To be frank, despite their adorable daughter and dog, the newest residents of the Central Plaza Mansion are hard to root for. Their relationship began as a torrid affair that drove Teppei’s first wife to suicide, and even when he found her body hanging in their apartment, he couldn’t find it in his heart to say anything nice about her. Instead, he idly mused about how badly he’d treated her when she was alive—and how much she’d deserved every minute of it.
Misao isn’t much better, though she does show a little embarrassment about the whole affair-and-suicide thing. Unfortunately, when she isn’t going through the motions of respecting the dead wife’s memory, she’s busy being catty about people who are kind to her. By the end, I was hoping that the kid and dog would ride off safely into the sunset, and everybody else would go ahead and get eaten by monsters.
That said, the supernatural mystery at the center is pretty interesting, and there are several solid scare-scenes that are beautifully done. The Graveyard Apartment requires some patience in places, and not everyone will hold out for the reward at the end. But for true genre enthusiasts, it’s worth a look.
Cherie Priest is the author of 19 books and novellas, including the gothic horror novel Maplecroft and the Clockwork Century series. Her novel The Family Plot will be out from Tor Books in September.

A too-good-to-be-true apartment turns out to be exactly that for a young Japanese family in this supernatural thriller.Confronted with prohibitive housing prices, a young couple is thrilled to find a large, airy apartment for themselves, their small daughter, and the family dog that they can afford. Misao, the wife and mother of the pair, has her own misgivings. Why are there so few tenants in a building that offers such a bargain? And why would anyone choose to build a high-rise surrounded by a graveyard on three sides? Unfortunately, all of the portents in this thriller are that obvious. Pet bird found dead in its cage on the morning after the family moves in? Check. Basement with storage space that can only be reached by elevator since--cue shuddery music--there are no stairs? Yep. This is the kind of book in which, if the little girl didn't start announcing that the dead bird was talking to her, you'd think the author had forgotten to add it. It's also of that particularly unpleasant hue where basically decent characters exist to be punished. Ghost stories rarely end well. But the fates in this one are too grim to provide even spooky pleasure. There's a vacancy in the Graveyard Apartment. Just not the one the author intended. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
A too-good-to-be-true apartment turns out to be exactly that for a young Japanese family in this supernatural thriller.Confronted with prohibitive housing prices, a young couple is thrilled to find a large, airy apartment for themselves, their small daughter, and the family dog that they can afford. Misao, the wife and mother of the pair, has her own misgivings. Why are there so few tenants in a building that offers such a bargain? And why would anyone choose to build a high-rise surrounded by a graveyard on three sides? Unfortunately, all of the portents in this thriller are that obvious. Pet bird found dead in its cage on the morning after the family moves in? Check. Basement with storage space that can only be reached by elevator sincecue shuddery musicthere are no stairs? Yep. This is the kind of book in which, if the little girl didn't start announcing that the dead bird was talking to her, you'd think the author had forgotten to add it. It's also of that particularly unpleasant hue where basically decent characters exist to be punished. Ghost stories rarely end well. But the fates in this one are too grim to provide even spooky pleasure. There's a vacancy in the Graveyard Apartment. Just not the one the author intended.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.