TILLINGHAST

In this dark debut, a reclusive pastor with a grisly secret must reckon with his past.

Stutley Tillinghast has been a priest in his small Rhode Island town for a long time—longer than most residents realize. He lives a solitary life in a house with no electricity and shallow graves in the basement. He’s not proud of what he is; he simply has needs that must be met and that he takes care of with speed and precision. His routine is interrupted, however, when a young woman comes to town searching for him. She shares his last name, and she looks like the woman who turned Tillinghast into what he is, all those years ago. Thrust into a new role and forced to watch over the stranger after she falls ill with a worryingly familiar sickness, Tillinghast must reexamine his past to determine what the future may hold. Despite its modern setting, Cavenagh’s novel reads like 19th-century gothic fiction in all the best ways, drawing the reader into Tillinghast’s perspective while projecting a suffocating atmosphere. As Tillinghast looks back over his life, writing a confession of sorts as he nurses the girl, two stories emerge: how Tillinghast came to be what he is and the possible transformation of the girl and what that might mean. Though this works well as a device to flesh out the characters, it means that most of the action takes place in flashbacks, leaving little action to drive the overarching plot. This makes the story feel static, almost all forward momentum happening in the last 30 pages, though the characters are unique and the voice inventive.

An original, sinister tale.