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New York Times

Book Review: ‘The Haunting of Room 904,' by Erika T. Wurth

THE HAUNTING OF ROOM 904, by Erika T. Wurth Ghosts are business left unfinished. Reminders of a wrong that needs righting. They are the unbalanced ledger, and, in the United States, unpaid debts never truly die. In Erika T. Wurth's novel 'The Haunting of Room 904,' ghosts appear on Page 1, and the debt they point to looms large over the entire story. Olivia Becente, a Native paranormal investigator, is hired to break the curse of a hotel room where women, at regular five-year intervals, mysteriously meet violent ends. The case leads her to another tragedy, one that both dwarfs and ties together the individual deaths: the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. But this summary makes the book sound more serious than it is. What horror exists in these pages is blunted by the novel's persistent tendency toward moralizing. Take, for example, the first exorcism Olivia performs. A young woman who has purchased a 'dybbuk box' off eBay is subsequently plagued by nightmares and waking visions of her deceased father. A grieving and angry Cheyenne two-spirit presence resides in the box and has sought out the young woman because she is descended from a white person who participated in the massacre that decimated the Cheyenne tribe. How is the malevolent ghost exorcised from the box? Olivia has the young woman apologize for her ancestor's role in the killings. On top of that, the woman feels compelled then to donate to the American Indian College Fund and to send a 'formal, public apology to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes on behalf of her ancestor.' Problem solved. 'The Haunting of Room 904' is less horror and more urban fantasy in the mold of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' or 'Charmed,' where everyone is young and flirty and humor is deployed liberally. But where the aforementioned TV shows possessed structural narrative integrity and characters who took their jobs seriously, this novel abounds in plot holes. Characters hide and reveal information not because it was what they would actually do but because the story needs tension or because the characters are heading in the wrong direction and the course of their investigation must be righted. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.