In A Dark Place

The “true” story behind The Haunting in Connecticut by Ray Garton

4/5 Star Review

I’m wrapping up reviews for books read in the last week of April and you know what that means – we are halfway to Halloween! Over on the Spine Breakers YouTube channel, Sue and Megan have been hosting Halfaweenathon 2020. You can find the the original video and the reading challenges here.

I read In A Dark Place for challenge #3 – Read a book that involves something supernatural.

I am endlessly fascinated with the supernatural and the paranormal. It’s something that I would like to believe in, but thus far have not experienced anything that could not be rationally explained. I love reading “true” tales of hauntings, but they are all read with a grain of salt. In A Dark Place was no exception to this. More on this in a bit.

In the 1980s, The Snedekers oldest son was undergoing daily cancer treatments and the family needed to move closer to the city in order to better care for him. With limited income, there was only one home that they found and could afford that satisfied both the needed location and space for their family of six – a former funeral home. The parents opted not to share that fact with the kids and spent their next year or so in utter denial of all of the weird goings-on around the home. Their eldest son was the most affected and often blamed for the spooky occurrences. The situation reached its boiling point once their son was no longer in the home and the Snedekers could no longer lie to themselves about the presence of evil. Enter the Warrens and eventual exorcism of the home.

This book has it all – strange sounds, disembodied voices, shadow figures, weird lights, footsteps, phantom touches, disappearing items, vibrating beds, the evil spirits of necrophiliacs, and demonic anal rape. Oh, yes – what kind of possessed house would this be if you weren’t being anally raped by a demonic presence?!

This book is an absolute blast – when you read it as fiction. It stands on its own as a pretty great haunted house novel. Ray Garton is a fantastic writer and his story shines. If you read it as a true story, well, there are many plot holes and inconsistencies to be found. Garton himself found them and questioned the Snedekers who never seemed to be able to keep their stories straight. He approached the Warrens about the questionable events and was told by Ed to, “…make it up and make it scary. That’s why we hired you.” I highly recommend reading the interview that Ray Garton did with Damned Connecticut about his experience writing this book. You can find it here.

Whether or not you believe the validity of this story or in the Warrens ability to assist in these cases – it is a fun ride. Garton wrote a wicked fun haunted house story that can be enjoyed whether it is true or not. Recommended read!