A Pleasure and a Calling - Phil Hogan

There are many authors for whom I would move heaven and earth to meet.  If, for example, I heard that Jo Rowling, John Green or Bernard Cornwall were speaking at an event near me, wild horses could not keep me from rushing there like the deluded fanboy that I am.  For the great majority of other authors whose books I like, I’d also love to meet them, but I wouldn’t be super disappointed if I missed out.  For the most part when I meet an author I’m intrigued to find out their inspiration, to find out what motivated them to create the characters/setting/story and generally soak up their reflected awesome.  There are some authors, however, that I have no desire to meet.  This may be because their books are terrible, or that they themselves may be terrible people.  Some, however, I am reluctant to meet because, frankly, their books make me scared to meet them.  I worry about what goes through their minds, the imagination that allowed them to create scenes/characters/plots that just completely freaked me out.  This is not necessarily a comment on their writing or on the quality of their work.  It’s just that they creep me out.  There are very few authors in this select list of mine, mainly because I avoid horror stories.  Recently a new author has been added: Phil Hogan.

I have never read a book of his before and to be honest his is not the normal sort of book that I would pick up.  A Pleasure and a Calling came highly recommended from its publicist.  Elizabeth talked this book up as one of the best books that she’s ever read.  With an endorsement (albeit I guess a fairly biased one) I thought that I’d have to give it a try.  She did give me a warning before I started it though, and I shall pass this on to you before I begin this review.  Do not, under any circumstances, read this book if you are moving house.  Seriously.  Don’t  be a hero on this, it’s not worth it.

The first thing to say about this book is that this is not a horror book.  Indeed I would not really call it a scary book as such.  The word that I would use to characterise this book is ‘creepy’.  This book is really creepy.  Super creepy.  It is told in the first person through a guy called Mr Heming.  A beyond creepy guy.  He is owns an estate agency in a town in Middle England and charming and disarming, much like you’d expect a salesman to be.  He’ll find you the perfect house, or will sell your beloved place for a good price.  Great.  The problem is, he’ll keep the key.  He may follow you home.  He isn’t going to hurt you if you don’t notice him.  He’s not that kind of guy.  He is a stalker, he gets his kicks from immersing himself in your life.  This may manifest itself by him sitting in your house while you’re at work, or it may go that extra step further and involve him sleeping in your attic while you are still there...  Yeah I told you it was creepy.

What elevates the creep-level is the way the story is told.  The narrator tells everything in such a matter-of-fact manner.  He is aware that his behaviour is not normal, yet he sees nothing wrong with his actions.  He embraces his life choices, there is no guilt.  He is, for lack of a better word, a sociopath yet the image that he presents to the world is of an eminently trustworthy and likeable man.  He has relationships and is a successful businessman.  His past is a little sketchy – actually it’s a lot sketchy – but people in his town don’t know about that, and mostly he’s fairly good at covering for himself.  This carefully cultivated image that others cannot penetrate is another aspect of what makes this story so disturbing.  Mr Heming seems like any other salesman, like any estate agent that you could ever meet.  It makes me wonder if we changed the locks when we moved into our current house... Do our estate agents have keys?  Do the previous owners? Actually the previous owner passed away... what about her relatives?  This book really opens up a pandora’s box of paranoia that I never knew I had.

You may notice that so far this isn’t a hugely cogent review.  It’s full of short sentences and poorly expressed phrases that really don’t get across why I like this book so much.  Oh, I just realised I hadn’t told you that yet.  I love this book.  It is one of the best books that I have read this year.  The story is beautifully paced, building at first slowly then gathering pace rapidly.  The main character, a quasi-antihero, quasi-villain is a character who is strangely relatable and despite his completely disturbing behaviour I weirdly found myself rooting for him.  Then I stop.  Because that’s weird.  The other characters support the narrative well, but the story really puts Mr Heming centre stage and that is perfect, because he is a perfect storm of creepy.

I really hope that this review does not scare you off A Pleasure and a Calling.  Trust me when I say that this book is an excellent read. It is one of those stories that stays with you; that makes you see the world around you differently.  It packs a significant amount of punch into a relatively small number of pages with a pacing that will leave you gasping for breath by the end.  I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is settled in their home and not planning on... you know... meeting an estate agent for real any time soon.

8.5/10