Considered one of the masterpieces of American Gothic horror, “The girl who lives at the end of the road” it gives off intelligence and intention on all four sides. His virtues are linked to the rural children’s subgenre of horror literature, especially, which emerged in the seventies, with indisputable classics such as “The other”the work of Thomas Tryon, a central influence on writers such as Stephen King.
As in Tryon’s novel, Koenig takes us into the childish thoughts of a child; in this case, a girl who answers to the name of Rynn. This character was later played by a brooding thirteen-year-old Jodie Foster in the film adaptation of this book. In this sense (and although it sounds obvious), it is advisable not to see the film before reading such an inspired parade of pages of encounters, captured chapter by chapter, of Rynn with adults who put her intelligence to the test. Whether it’s from the giant policeman of Italian origin to the perverted Mr. Hallet, Koenig confronts her protagonist with a human carousel that captures the most violent way of knowing adult life.
The atmosphere created by Koenig throughout the novel is tremendously chilling. His prose drinks directly from the gothic branch, with a commendable ability to delve into Rynn’s home and make us part of each scene through a terrifying capacity for detailed description, at different levels, using metaphor as a central resource for memorable moments such as those heartbeats represented by each stair shot of a spoiler that it would be a sin to reveal.
With minimal elements, the world of Rynn and her little mouse is represented as an underworld alien to society, as if it were a continuously attacked doll’s house. Pure delight of the sacred codes of the typical North American horror novel billed in the seventies, which here reaches the sublime through the narration of a guy in a state of grace when he wrote it.