House of Margins
I just finished my immersive reading experience of House of Margins by Tlotlo Tsamaase, thanks to NetGalley, Kensington Publishing, and RBMedia.
House of Margins is an eerie Gothic tale with a true crime podcast setup, a haunted house, a writing retreat, and a chance to learn something about a culture that’s not my own - basically everything I could ask for.
Eighteen months after her sister Anaya goes missing, Ranewa, who has been desperate to find out what happened to her, finds her cell phone on her bed which plays a podcast through which we hear about Anaya’s time at Günter Huis, the creepy colonial mansion which hosts a writer’s residency with a literary prize. Anaya is one of six African women selected for the residency, and one of them, Michelle, hosts the true crime podcast through which much of the story about their lives at Günter Huis is told.
There is a lot going on in House of Margins, as much in the subtext as the text. Throughout, not only overtly in the text, but satirically such as each time we are reminded how important every “like” and “subscribe” is, is commentary on what it takes to succeed in the publishing industry. Even heavier and more horrific subjects are tackled as well, generational trauma, mostly stemming from colonialism and how women were treated not only by colonialists but by their families and communities.
For all that, it’s also an atmospheric, surreal, disorienting ride through nightmares and supernatural occurrences, written so descriptively that it is easy to see how it could play out on film, which is teased in the in-world version of the story. I’d watch that.
Unsurprisingly, reading with both eyes and ears is definitely the way to go with this one. The pages are formatted to distinguish between Patreon pages, social media comments, articles, etc., not to mention making it easier to keep up with the unusual (to me) names and phrases, but the audiobook format makes it feel like we are part of the story, listening to the podcast just like Ranewa. All is excellently narrated by Tshego Khutsoane, Didi Khounou, and Kate Liquorish, making it feel all the more immersive.
