The Graveyard Apartment is not The Shining, however, and the ghosts troubling the family are not manifestations of buried psychosexual traumas – they are, most assuredly, actual vengeful spirits. Misao and Teppei’s disagreement over how to handle their daughter’s insistence on the reality of the supernatural is the first of many arguments, which gradually escalate over the course of the story. The novel opens inauspiciously with the death of Tamao’s pet bird Pyoko, who the girl claims now visits her in dreams. When the stress of the paranormal activity in their new apartment places stress on Misao and Teppei’s relationship, the fault lines of their marriage begin to crack. Misao and Teppei are happy together with their five-year-old daughter Tamao and their dog Cookie, but the bright little family is trailed by the dark shadow of Teppei’s first wife Reiko, who was driven to suicide by her husband’s affair with Misao. Like many other haunted house stories, The Graveyard Apartment is, at its heart, a family drama. It might be that the building is haunted, but why? And what would the ghosts want from Misao and Teppei? The only problem is that strange things always seem to be happening in the basement. Sure, this building happens to be right next door to a graveyard, but it’s the 1980s, and the pleasant proximity to an open green space outweighs any sort of silly superstitious stigma.

It’s quiet and spacious with southern exposure, and it’s in a new, modern building. Kano Misao and her husband Teppei have found the perfect apartment. Publication Year: 2016 (America) 1988 (Japan)

Japanese Title: 墓地を見おろす家 ( Bochi o miorosu ie)

The graveyard apartment a novel