THE HOUNDING

Five sisters set off a wave of paranoia in their English village after a rumor spreads that they can turn into dogs.

“They were not normal, those girls”: This is the sentiment held by a majority of townsfolk in the riverside Oxfordshire village of Little Nettlebed not too long after the English Civil War. Sisters Anne, Elizabeth, Hester, Grace, and Mary Mansfield are “the fierce one, the pretty one, the tomboy, the nervous one, the youngest.” They range in age from 19 down to 6, have lost both their parents and, newly, their grandmother, leaving them to care for their farmer grandfather, who is losing his sight. No one can quite pinpoint what it is about them—their insular nature, their closeness, their standoffishness toward other villagers—but most of the townspeople keep their distance. When the town ferryman, the misogynistic alcoholic Pete Darling, claims to have seen the girls changing into dogs under cover of night, the rumor spreads through Little Nettlebed with lightning speed. Soon, the girls are being blamed for misfortunes: dead hens, falling levels of water in the river. As word spreads about the girls’ strange affliction and authority figures from the vicar to the doctor get involved, the town’s hysteria escalates until a catastrophic act of violence changes everything. Purvis shifts narration across multiple villagers, including Darling and the girls’ grandfather, to show the corrosive power of group mentality and social conformity—and to illuminate the simple bravery of being true to who you are. The novel is a master class in paranoia and strategic ambiguity. Like Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” it shows that the horrors lurking beneath small-town life are timelessly unsettling.

Purvis’ suspenseful and sure-footed debut breathes vivid life into its arresting concept.