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Rue Rosco 13
by Eddie RussellPublish: Jul 20, 2023Supernatural SuspenseBook Overview
In Russell's horror novella, cousins band together when one's mother seems to become demonicallly possessed.Eric Meisinger gets a llate-night phone call from his cousin, Bernard, and catches up on family affairs, including the latter's
heated divorce. But Bernard's chief concern is Agnes, his 88-year-old mother, with whom he lives. Agnes had a frighteningly
violent episode earlier that evening and has another one midway through the phone call. So, Eric heads to his aunt Agnes'
house, only to be greeted with a horrifying sight-his crazed aunt, perched in a cramped space atop a cabinet and uttering what
the cousins initially deem "gibberish." ("It's some kind of language. I recall! heariing it somewhere, but I just can't recalll where.")
After she commits an especially vulgar, unnerving act, Eric and Bernard, convinced she's possessed, call in the professionals. A
rabbi (Agnes was raised in a Jewish household) and then a Haitian priest stop by, but can either clergyman successfully
exorcise whatever has hold of the elderly woman? In the meantime, Agnes grows worse, and she may even pose a threat to
Eric and Bernard. The author builds a solid foundation for the cousins, filling in their family's background and detailing, for
example, how Bernard's German father, Albert, had to undergo an interrogation of sorts from Agnes' family to get their
approval for him to marry Agnes. Religion plays a crucial part in this short narrative, and it's fascinating to see the differences in
how the rabbi and the Haitian priest handle a case of possession. On the horror front, the book has several eerie turns, though
genre fans will have seen some of this befo:re (mostly in the classic 1973 movie The Exorcis . Although the much-anticipated
exorcism scene is a bit anticlimactic, the novella's closing moments are quietly sublime. Wilson's charcoal-like illlustrations
cover fulll pages in elegant black, aptly portraying such disconcerting images as Agnes mindlessly standing at an open fridge
or the remnants of her destructive behavior.
A truly disturbing story of exorcism, even if it relies on some familiar horror tropes.
