"THE HOUSE ON TRADD STREET" by Karen White (B+)
This is a fun book to read
for those who are looking for a crackling plot and a story filled chock a block with a potpourri of literary genres all mixed
together into a finely crafted bouillabaisse. Start with a touch of the Gothic and ghosts who haunt a historic home. Add a
dash of romance with Melanie Middleton, a successful real estate agent who has never been married and is now pushing forty.
She is both attracted to and put off by Jack Trenholm, an author and history buff who is just too good looking for his own
good. Or that of any woman who gets anywhere near this consummate charmer.
A sauce of mystery is poured
in with the unexplained disappearances of a loving mother and others some 70 years before, none of whom were ever heard from
again. Spice those missing people up with the parents of the characters who are also living in Charleston, but have a deeply
estranged relationship with their adult children.
Mix all of this in with the possibility that Civil War booty
that may be secreted somewhere within the Tradd Street house of this book's title. This book is filled with the heavy, moss-laden
atmosphere of old world Charleston, especially the area south of Broad Street where homes were built before the Civil War,
and are now musty with the patina of age and history. Heat and humidity hang off the pages of this book like Spanish moss
off the trees of Charleston. Stir all that together, and there you will have it!
After writing her first
five novels in the genre of Southern Gothic Romance, author Karen White has successfully managed a transition into more serious
literary fare in her succeeding novels even though they share the same Southern locales familiar to the author. She has won
numerous literary awards with her later novels, especially her highly regarded ninth novel, "The Memory of Water," which was
published in 2008 just preceding the publication of this novel. White is a graduate of Tulane University and the American
School in London, and now she makes her home in Georgia with her family.
"The House on Tradd Street"
is White's tenth novel, and this talented writer faithfully captures real life conversation in both the ways people talk and
also the way that they think to themselves, all of which makes her characters more realistic and believable. My small niggling
complaint is with the way Melanie Middleton is portrayed. As I have said, she is a successful businesswoman pushing the age
of forty. Somewhat surprisingly, though, she occasionally acts girlish and immature when I believe that she should know better.
I would have assumed a higher level of maturity, but perhaps this type of characterization is a carryover from the author's
earlier days as a Gothic romance novelist.
Nevertheless, reading this book has been a delight, and
apparently there is more to come. From the epilogue it appears that the author will carry the Melanie Middleton and Jack Trenholm
characters of this novel over into her next novel. This will be seen as a good thing for those like me who have enjoyed this
novel.
Melanie Middleton is a star broker with Henderson House Realty. She has been summoned to 55 Tradd
Street, a gracious home located in the historic Charleston district south of Broad Street. Although selling historic houses
in Charleston is her specialty, if truth be told, she really does not care for them very much. Too much work and too many
annoying smells that hang around. More to the point, Melanie has inherited her mother's ability to see ghosts, a trait that
she finds more than a little annoying. Needless to say, these older sections of Charleston are filled with the ephemeral reminders
of the people who had once lived there.
The famous Vanderhorst house is more historic than most,
and it has been lived in by a member of the Vanderhorst family from well before the start of the Civil War. She is met at
the door by its current owner, Mr. Nevin Vanderhorst, an elderly and very courtly gentleman who welcomes her into the mansion.
In spite of her interest in getting down to the business of obtaining the listing on the house, Mr. Vanderhorst persists in
serving tea and carrying on a leisurely conversation. It turns out that his father and Melanie's grandfather were once best
friends and law partners, but something had happened to drive them apart. Nevin has no clue as to what had happened, and neither
does Melanie.
Mr. Vanderhorst strangely persists in asking Melanie about the woman she saw on the swing hanging
on the old Oak tree in the back yard by the fountain. Melanie had seen her, but knew it to be another ghost, so she didn't
want to discuss this for fear of losing the listing. Under further prodding, she finally gives in and confesses that, yes,
she had seen the woman. Mr. Vanderhorst obliquely replies, "Good, because then she approves of you." He seems very happy to
hear this, but then he abruptly ushers Melanie out the door before she has had a chance to discuss Henderson Realty listing
his house for sale.
Melanie's connection to the Vanderhorst Mansion will take a very strange twist in the days to come,
a surprising and troubling turn of events that will change her life forever and bring Jack Trenholm and Marc Longo, two very
appealing men, into her formerly loveless life. But both men have secret motives and hidden agendas for cultivating her friendship,
so is it really her who they are interested in, or is it something else? 2008, New American Library, 329 pages.
