The Glass House
Rachel Donohue’s The Glass House is a dark and lyrical mystery that focuses on the lives of two sisters and their philosopher father, whose mysterious death on New Year’s Eve in 1963 will cast a long and ominous shadow over their lives. Sisters Aisling and Stella share an isolated existence in a modernist house in the east of Galway. Their lives are dominated by their controversial father, Richard Acklehurst, who is considered a genius by his devoted fans, but is despised by others as a dangerous neo-fascist.
Acklehurst shows little interest in the happiness of his daughters but seeks to dominate –“perhaps his most clearly defined trait”. He expounds a Randian worldview where the State is despised and “the strength and greatness of the individual – a man – was all that mattered.” Many years later, Acklehurt’s remains are defiled in the country graveyard, where they have lain undisturbed for more than 30 years. The discovery draws the sisters back to their childhood home, where they are forced to confront the dark secrets at the heart of their family.
The Glass House is an unsettling and atmospheric novel, which takes its time to reveal its dark secrets. I kept thinking about our current times, and the return of ideas we thought were long buried in the past, as well as the people who revel in spreading them. As the front cover tagline suggests… the window to the past can never be closed.
