Poe & I, by Matthew Mercier

Welcome to Poe Cottage… Would you like a tour?

Jonah Peabody takes a job as caretaker and docent for the last home of Edgar Allan Poe in The Bronx, but from the moment he moves into Poe’s Basement—where the caretaker must live—he finds himself also living inside a Poe story, stalked by a man who seems to be his doppelganger and who seeks revenge for past misdeeds.

Jonah claims to be hunting for his lost sister, but as the narrative shifts between past and present, it’s clear that he’s not telling us the entire story. Haunted by the violent ghosts of his own family and Poe himself, Jonah must reconcile with his dark past before the dual shadow of guilt and grief buries him alive. Living in Poe’s Basement might just be his last chance at redemption.

The author himself lived in Poe Cottage many and many a year ago, and Poe & I is loosely based on that experience, but this is no memoir. It's pure fiction. Or, as Poe might say, a hoax.

When I opened this book, I did not expect to see blurb recommendations from authors long-dead. This was the first tip-off that the narrator (and perhaps the author himself) are not to be trusted. Tread carefully into these pages, reader…

A love-letter to both the titular writer and the spirit of the Bronx where his life concluded, this modern fairytale reflects the hardships and dreams of men in the world both now and in the past.

We’re taken on the journey of narrator Jonah, rising from the depths of his broken childhood into slightly lower-depths of his life as a blue-collar worker in New York, questing for his lost sister without much in the way of money or friends… until he finds the House of Poe.

I think Jonah would agree that he’s not the most likeable of protagonists, but his wit and honesty soon had me travelling alongside willingly enough. The narrative jumps between his schooldays with an Usher-like mother and drunken mortician father, ostracized by his small-town neighbours and confused by what exactly is real - the world as taught by teachers versus the one he has to live in every day.

In the present, the mysteries only become more… well, mysterious. Problems of class, education and race are constant, but so are hauntings, histories and myths of the man that Poe was, or might have been.

Nobody seems to be telling the whole truth anywhere in this book, and it was weirdly refreshing. The quick humour and constant unexpected twists had me turning the pages, while the increasing need to find out just what exactly would happen with Jonah kept me on my toes.

There’s an undercurrent of fate here as powerful as any of Poe’s stories, as we slowly learn more of what’s going on, how the past impacts the present (and future), and something as small as a finger can influence a man’s life.

I don’t think there’s any way to accurately reflect the whirls and eddies (heheh) of this book, but if you love modern gothic mysteries told with charm and care, definitely give this one a look.