I was perusing the shelves at Borders recently and the name H.P. Lovecraft was written on the front cover. Naturally, I picked it up, and discovered that this was a novel that HP really enjoyed and wrote to friends about. So I had to have it. Last night during a major bout of insomnia, I read the entire book in a couple of hours. Very creepy in a gothic, psychological sort of way.

The Dark Chamber is told from the perspective of Oscar Fitzalan, who has come to a house called Mordance Hall. The book was written in the 1920s, so I'm assuming that's when it was set. Oscar has accepted a somewhat mysterious position where he is to assist the master of the house, a Richard Pride, who is working on some sort of strange psychological experiment involving human memory; also at the house is Miriam Price, Richard's wife, his daughter Janet, and a strange man who is Price's secretary, Wilfred Hough.

Price's experiment began with an exploration of combing his own memories; his theory was that the older a person became, the more memories he could recall. As he began to journal his memories, he hired an investigator to seek out the truth of his remembrances, and each time, the investigator proved Price's memories right. Now he has embarked on another quest, having gone as far back in his own life's memories as possible: he is investigating what he calls "ancestral memory," and his research will have some startling conclusions. His obsession with memory and his past most likely stems from his pathetic life in the present; his wife is whacko, his daughter is a stranger to him, and it is into this milieu that Oscar comes and finds himself becoming obsessed with figuring out what the heck is going on.

A very strong story; considering it was written in the 1920s, it is still amazingly clear and frightening in a psychological sort of way in the present. Recommended for readers of horror fiction. ( )