Tillinghast
There's a name for what he is. He prefers not to use it…
Stutley Tillinghast lives a solitary life, ostensibly as the minister of a remote rural parish in Rhode Island. For many decades now, what little human contact he allows himself has been brief, frenzied and bloody, and always ends in a shallow grave in his cellar.
You and I would have a name for what he is, but he prefers not to use it – he has needs, and when they become unbearable, he fulfils them.
Then the girl arrives – 19 years old, she has travelled from the UK to find him. She seems to have his surname, and her resemblance to him is uncanny. She is sick – very sick – and Tillinghast recognises her symptoms all too well. Which means he also knows what she needs…
Darkly compelling and irresistibly readable, TILLINGHAST marks the arrival of a major new literary talent.
Reviews
Deliciously unsettling. Clare Cavenagh weaves a gothic magic through the pages, evoking Shirley Jacksonesque horror. TILLINGHAST examines the fine line between what is human and what is not and elicits a dread that leaves you unable to look away. A book that will stay with you long after you’ve finished turning the pages.
A somber hymn of loneliness, of ancient wounds still tender, raw, and healing, of an insatiable, eternal yearning. TILLINGHAST is a soft chant in the dark—a tone poem etched in blood, agony, and utter cruelty. Lyrical and devastating, this remarkably heartfelt debut filled me with the same intense emotion I felt when I first watched Park Chan-wook's THIRST or read LOSY SOULS by Poppy Z. Brite for the very first time.
Deliciously unsettling. Clare Cavenagh weaves a gothic magic through the pages, evoking Shirley Jacksonesque horror. TILLINGHAST examines the fine line between what is human and what is not and elicits a dread that leaves you unable to look away. A book that will stay with you long after you’ve finished turning the pages.