EARTHBOUND BY RICHARD MATHESON
(Tor Books paperback, 224pp, $4.99)

David and Ellen Cooper return to the beachside community where they spent their honeymoon more than twenty years before in an attempt to rescue a marriage placed under severe stress by David’s infidelity. But whenever Ellen is away David is visited by Marianna, a young and beautiful woman to whom he is powerfully attracted. He finds himself drawn into a passionate affair, the very last thing that he needed in the circumstances. David’s undoubted love for Ellen plays in deadly counterpoint to his desire for Marianna, as their bouts of frantic lovemaking leave him drained physically and mentally, deepening the rift between husband and wife. Another resident of the area warns David that Marianna is not what she seems to be, and slowly doubt gives way to the realisation of who, or rather what, he has invited into his bed and life.

This is the ‘approved and restored’ text of a short novel originally published by Playboy Press in 1982, and so severely edited that Matheson had the name Logan Swanson substituted for his own byline. A ghost story with an erotic undercurrent, Earthbound is so much more than such a reductive label might suggest, in the main thanks to Matheson’s skill at characterisation and the deft pacing of his story. The Coopers’ efforts to find a common ground in their ailing marriage is as much a part of what makes the book special as the supernatural element. The history of the troubled couple, the very thing that leaves David vulnerable to Marianna’s charms, is filled in largely through the use of suggestion, so that every gesture, every exchange of dialogue is invested with a meaning beyond what lies on the surface, and when the fragile peace is shattered the reader is primed to expect the worst.

The outré side of the narrative is handled with an equal skill, with detail after detail piled on, creating a sense of conviction that defies all disbelief, for David and the reader alike. Particularly notable is the self-righteous venom of Marianna’s sister, a vital part of what keeps her spirit chained to this earth and setting us up for a final twist, one in which David’s ‘victory’ is undercut. With strong echoes of DuMaurier’s Rebecca, this is a beautifully written, thoroughly believable and compelling variation on the ghost story and, if not on a par with his more famous work, more than adequate proof that Matheson is a writer who can always be relied on to show the reader a good time.

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Tags: Black Static • Book Reviews • Earthbound • Peter Tennant • Richard Matheson