Apartment 16

Adam Nevill has already established himself as a writer of classic-style horror with his 2008 novel "[[ASIN:0753513587 Banquet for the Damned]]". His latest outing, "Apartment 16", is equally spine-tingling and every bit as unnerving, and an absolutely compulsive read to boot.

None of the material here is particularly original but Nevill combines ideas and inspirations from a variety of sources -- the cosmic horror and mirror world ideas of H P Lovecraft; episodes and facts from the life and artistic output of Wyndham Lewis (especially his short-lived vorticism movement), the Bloomsbury set, plus the author's own experiences working as a night porter in apartment blocks around Knightsbridge and Mayfair -- to produce an intense blend of the weird and the disturbing from which he weaves a spine-chilling tale of obsession, possession and the looming presence of evil lurking behind the façade of the everyday world. The result is a good solid contemporary horror story, built on the classic horror tradition but not seeming in any way derivative.

Nevill's prose is top rate, almost poetic at times, and never less than highly atmospheric. In fact, I would go as far as to say that this is the first book I have ever read that feels to have been written in colour, so vibrant -- and visual -- is it. It would adapt perfectly for the screen. The story is well paced, escalating the tension and the terror steadily to a fast moving, adrenalin-inducing finale. My only criticism of the book is reserved for the very end; personally I found the ending curiously unsatisfying, inconclusive and something of a disappointment -- an anti-climax, almost -- after the sustained excellence up to that point. Also, looking back over episodes from the middle of the book from the vantage point of the close, I could not help but feel that some events were included more for their disturbing effects, than for any contribution they really made to the progression of the story.

These really are minor quibbles, however; overall "Apartment 16" offers a pretty solid horror story of the old school, guaranteed to make you reluctant to turn out the light at night, or to risk glancing in mirrors when you are tired. I suspect that you'll come to view some aspects and areas of London in an altogether new (and rather less savoury) light as well.

In the movie `1408' Samuel L. Jackson's character asserts that the room of the title is "just an evil f**king room." Apartment 16, however, is not evil in itself, but it is imbued with it, and has been for fifty years, through the tortured and twisted paintings of its previous owner, the obscure and now dead artist Felix Hessen. And for those fifty years this expensive apartment in a luxury building in the heart of London has sat empty and brooding, its evil seeping out into the rest of the apartment building, filling it with shadows no amount of lighting can disperse.

Into this dim gothic domain enters Apryl, a young American who has come to sell apartment 39, which she and her mother have inherited from an old aunt she never met. And through aunt Lillian's diaries she discovers a catalogue of madness, delusion, paranoia and nightmares in its residents, all induced by the paintings of Hessen, residents who, in fifty years, have never been able to venture more than a mile in any direction from the building before becoming disorientated and ill . . . the only escape is death.

Meanwhile, when nightwatchman and aspiring-artist-down-on-his-luck Seth investigates noises coming from apartment 16, he soon experiences hallucinations, paranoia and ultimately finds himself becoming a channel through which new paintings are created - paintings which open up a gateway in apartment 16 to the Void.

This isn't simply a haunted English country manor transplanted to a city setting, for London is an integral part of the story - a character in itself - and in that sense Nevill brilliantly conveys a Thomas Ligotti-esque flavour of a city relentlessly grinding down its citizens. And the moments of hallucination and paranoia (especially the superb sequence with Seth in the supermarket) are nothing short of vintage Ramsey Campbell as the author presents mundane situations which become transformed when seen through the eyes of his deeply disturbed characters. There are shades of Clive Barker, too, not least in the descriptions of paintings but in Nevill's portrayal of what the old and selfish and money-twisted residents of the apartment building truly look like when the thin veil of reality is stripped away. And then there are wonderful moments of delightful weirdness, as witness the chapter featuring a group of people calling themselves The Friends of Felix Hessen!

With the arrival of such imprints as Quercus, Corsair and Corvus there is a sense of horror finally being able to spreads its wings once more beyond the ghetto boundaries of the small press. But if publishers want to find the next, say, Clive Barker then they're going to have to have the conviction to turn their writers loose and let them go nuts, to have the courage to allow their writers to achieve their full ambition. This second novel from Nevill is an excellent 4-star read - but I'm saving the 5 stars for when he's turned loose and writes his equivalent of `Imajica', for there is a forceful sense that that potential is there in Nevill, as it is also in Mark Morris and Conrad Williams: two other terrific writers in need of a publisher to take that big gamble. Only then will publishers see the genre once more breaking out.

Apartment 16 was a pathetic piece of "literature." I should have heeded to the words of those who reviewed this book on Amazon calling it a "waste of time," but curious 'ol me decided to give it a chance. First of all, the book is completely annoying, as the story goes between Apryl --with a "y"-- and Seth. The two characters both inhabit the same apartment complex, but know nothing about each other until the very end when they finally meet (WHO CARES). Seth's stories are just so psychologically STUPID that I could only skim through them to prevent from totally drop-kicking the book (no joke). Apryl's story is also boring as well. I got so sick of hearing about how beautiful she was with "pale" skin, etc, etc... WHO CARES!!! ...This book has absolutely no structure at all. No questions are answered at the end as to WHY things are the way they are. The writing is also amateur as well. Nevill has no sense of imagination, particularly when it comes to imagery. He was trying to be so psychologically in tuned that it went no where and left the reader with a bunch of confusing mess!

Another thing that I didn't like about this book is being a person of color, I found it totally discriminatory. How come all the "low class" people in the book were either black or Arab? Black Africans worked in the laundry room in the basement of the apartment or like in the subway scene when Seth is trying to escape, a black women was referred to by the narrator as a "crack" addict and even called, by one of the scene's passengers, an ape. Also, the narrator goes on to describe the place where Arabs live as a "slum." Whatever! Complete stereotypical and twisted GARBAGE!

With all this said, I will NEVER read another book by Nevill, and my advice to anyone thinking about getting this book is: DON'T EVEN!

I would not recommend this book even to fans of occult and horror. It rambled on with with descriptions of weird paintings, mirrors and death. I did feel compelled to finish it, but toward the end I pretty much just scanned the pages. Sort of a disappointing ending.

Frankly, this book is not worth the effort.
The storyline is so full of mutterings, ramblings, senseless contents that it make you feel irritating.I went through more than 100 pages and the author still haven't somehow brings you into the plot.Further, he leaves a lot of things to the readers' imaginations. I know, being a ardent reader, we all have a rather good development in terms of imagination,but his way of writing really get on my nerves.Sometimes, I don't even know what he is trying to bring out!
The story seems to concentrate on two characters , Seth and Apryl, but until page 120 they have not met, although they are in the same building. The build-up is so horrendously slow that it is painful.The only build-up I feel is the sense of irritation and a undeniable notion that I m wasting my time.

Apartment 16 follows two different characters as they explore the secrets of the luxurious old building. The first is Seth, the building's night watchman. The job is ostensibly perfect for Seth. His own lodging is a vile bedsit in a decrepit pub, so the long hours aren't painful. Plus, as a former art student, Seth hopes to get some sketching done during his nights on duty.

Of course, this is horror - it never really works that way. Seth's not only wrestling with artist's block, but also his theoretically quiet nights on duty are frequently interrupted by strange and inexplicable things. Bumps. Sounds. Ill winds. Dark and flickering figures. All emanating from the titular apartment - a flat that's been empty for almost fifty years.

The other character plagued by the abandoned apartment is Apryl, a stylish young American. She's surprised to learn that she's the heir to a "long lost" great-aunt's flat (also in Barrington House) and her possessions. Apryl flies over to do a bit of speculative looting and finds a cobwebbed hoard of treasures worthy of Miss Havisham. Apryl also learns that her deceased relative was a little bonkers - prone to wandering around the neighbourhood with her expired passport, avoiding the sight of mirrors, and, perhaps most importantly of all, scribbling hundreds of pages of nonsense in her journals.

Seth and Apryl take baby steps towards apartment 16 from different directions. Seth's investigations are more physical - actually sneaking into the abandoned apartment. Appropriately, his results are tangible. His dreams are haunted by strange characters and horrible visions; ones that slowly spill over into reality. For almost the entirety of Apartment 16, Seth is feverish and weak. The malevolent forces in Barrington House are assaulting him in harsh and material ways, grinding down his stamina and his will with occult radiation.

Apryl's investigations are more introspective. Unlike Seth, Apryl isn't trying to determine the source of physical phenomena - she's trying to learn more about her aunt and the people around her. While Seth is curious about the apartment itself, Apryl is focused on the people involved.

The supernatural forces respond to Apryl in more subtle ways. Like Seth, Apryl sees glimpses of things - eerie, pallid figures in corners and reflections. Unlike Seth, Apryl doesn't suffer any physical impairment. She approaches her great-aunt's journals in a doggedly pragmatic fashion. She interviews the neighbours, does research at the library, uses the Internet (!) and takes copious notes. In short, Apryl's utterly sensible - the sort of character you'd never find in a horror movie.

Their parallel adventures unfold with awful inevitability of an hourglass. As the two characters begin to brush up against one another, the tension mounts. Cursed with a certain omniscience, the reader sees the novel's devastating climax long before Seth and Apryl do.

In the The Ritual, Mr. Nevill combines two types of horror - the atmospheric and the cinematic. In Apartment 16, he does the same, but this time running them concurrently instead of consecutively. Seth is surrounded by a whirling vortex of supernatural forces: dark rituals, faceless demons, wailing sounds, gnashing of teeth, freezing winds and screaming portals. Mr. Nevill flings him into the unstable world of a Lovecraftian short story... and then maintains it for hundreds of pages. This lavish madness is offset by the meticulously constructed disquiet of Apryl's misadventures. Whereas Seth wrestles with bloated Boschian entities, Apryl has unsettling evenings with badly dressed academics. Seth's demons have fangs and mucous trails; Apryl's have stained jackets and poor dental hygiene.

The pairing works well. Apryl grounds the reader and helps unfold the backstory in a character-driven way. Even if she's not being overtly pursued by eldritch entities, she bumps into enough nastiness to keep the reader twitchy. Similarly, the near-mundanity of her story keeps Seth's tale from spiralling entirely out of control. Unmitigated madness would've gotten old very quickly. Apryl serves as a reminder of what Seth's losing. In turn, Seth epitomizes what's at stake - not only for them, but for everyone.

There are a few moments where the duet hits a sour note - Apryl occasionally degenerates into a passive info-drip and Seth a burbling stream of poetic gibberish. However, these missteps are few and far between. There's also an unlikely third character that surfaces at the end of the book purely to give a Goldfingerian recitation of the plot-to-date. Apartment 16 channels many of the elegant touches and devious tropes of the early 20th Century horror masters; the unfortunate monologuing, however, is also something that stems from this era, and should've been left behind with it. However, Mr. Nevill does - wisely - keep from trying to explain the Inexplicable(tm) supernatural, Mephistophelian eeeevil behind the scenes. Some things are best left to the imagination, and Mr. Nevill knows it.

Those quibbles aside, there's no question that Apartment 16 works. It scared the bejeezus out of me. Fear isn't merely the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind, it is also the most personal. From the flickering almost-shadows to the ghastly, filthy paintings to the cackling, squirming cast to Weird and alien entities to the piles of magnificently unsettling clutter, I found every touch in Apartment 16 to be utterly chilling. I won't thank Mr. Nevill for the sleepless nights, but I enjoyed the book that caused them.

As ridiculous as it sounds, like another reviewer, the spelling of Apryl bothered me as did the unending references to her beauty. Thats a bit silly I know but maybe it was just too much on top of everything else. The two main characters are exploring the same issues, in the same building, but never meet until the end? Seth starts out as a sympathetic character then just falls apart with very little motivation. Apryl doesnt do any of the really classic stupid heroine things but comes close. At one point she wants to go into an apartment where she thinks murder and been done and that she believes is evil but hey whynot...lets get the creepy, stinky porter who paints dead people to let me in..at night. The whole 'cant leave the neighborhood' schtick was DUMB...get in a cab and have him go 5 miles. Problem solved. It was just an odd book...very creepy at times but then huge amounts of blather and babble that completely deserted the thread of the story. Some of it was very compelling but then it would start to feel like filler...like Nevill had a decent novella that someone tried to stretch into a longer piece.

This book was so bad, I threw it in the trash after I tried to muddle through it. I read mostly classics, so it certainly wasn't lack of intelligence that made me throw it out; the book totally reeked.

I'm not a big fan of drawn out descriptions or incessant self-questioning/internal monologue, all of with which Apartment 16 is heavily afflicted; the story could have been told in about a quarter of the space. Nevill is admittedly skilled at painting a vivid picture, but he frequently gets carried away by his own prowess. Many scenes, particularly those earlier in the tale, needlessly repeat themselves, characters having strange experiences over and over well after the point is made that unusual things are afoot.

These qualms are relatively minor next to the ending. The depictions of madness and loathing are intense in many places throughout the book and Nevill introduces some chilling ideas about what awaits us beyond the mortal coil, but the climax does not build upon either of these compelling aspects, nor is it particularly climactic. The final struggle is very brief and the protagonists are not threatened with anything the reader isn't already thoroughly familiar with - an egregiously missed opportunity, considering the long buildup and Nevill's competent imagination. Perhaps worse than this, nothing is resolved. No mention is made of the affects the ordeal had on the surviving characters, nor of the future of apartment 16.

I expect to hear the name "Adam Nevill" again, but in my opinion he hasn't quite hit his stride yet.

I loved this book. It was very frightening and I couldn't put it down. Very glad I read this one.