Is it possible to spend enough time with another person, and become so invested in who they are, what they do, and the mysteries they might be concealing, that when they die you become consumed by their spirit? Can you lose your own personality in the personality of the deceased, so that all you’re left with of your true self is the fluttering of moth wings on the periphery of your vision?
That’s the dilemma facing Thomas, whose interest in moths began as a young boy when he first met the icy lepidopterist Dr Phyllis Ewans, not realising how much the moths mounted upon her walls would change the course of his life. Although he is initially drawn to Phyllis’ much older, much warmer sister Billie, a conversation with Phyllis about one of her moth specimens begins a tenuous acquaintanceship which flounders when she moves back to London to continue her research but is rekindled when, as a grown man and fellow researcher of moths, he inadvertently becomes the crotchety old lady’s carer. And something strange happens as Thomas discovers Phyllis’ long-hidden photographs and begins to piece together the details of his mentor’s secretive past, gradually realising that the influence she has exerted upon him may be as slyly parasitic as the way insects lay their eggs inside living hosts, only for the hatched eggs to eat the surrogate from the inside out.
When Phyllis dies, Thomas becomes even more obsessed with solving her mystery and, in particular, solving the mystery of an unknown woman who appears in several of the photographs and may hold the key to who Phyllis really was. But as Thomas’s memories and Phyllis’ memories collide and as Thomas begins to wonder if, somehow, he has actually become Phyllis Ewans, the moths begin to gather, the ghost of Phyllis begins to materialise, and Thomas’s fragile mind starts to shatter.
Mothlight is a study of obsession descending into madness, with more than a touch of MR James in the psychological complexity of its central protagonist. Like most truly ‘get under your skin’ ghost stories (or is it a ghost story?), Mothlight is also a richly textured slow burner that is less concerned with scares than it is with creating a slow ripple of the uncanny along the readers spine. Maybe that’s where its real problem lies, not only because those ripples are few and far between but also because it’s hard to remain engrossed in a story which, for the most part, is focused on two characters it’s very hard to like or care much about… And, when an ending leaves you hanging slightly in mid-air, it’s important that the rest of the journey was worth it. Mothlight has a fantastic sense of atmosphere and an intriguing if overly-familiar idea at its heart, but unfortunately it’s not a journey we can entirely recommend.
MOTHLIGHT / AUTHOR: ADAM SCOVELL / PUBLISHER: INFLUX PRESS / RELEASE DATE: 7TH FEBRUARY
