The residents of Bird Street made a pact with the Devil. He offered them happiness if they in turn provide him with a human sacrifice once a year. The book's title points to the one caveat that surrounds the fateful clause. During the month of November they are all fully deprived of their luck, until the Accountant (as they call the manifested presence of evil) gets his victim. When things could go bad, they will go bad.

You cannot talk of Thomas Olde Heuvelt without mentioning Stephen King, and I won't attempt to free myself from forces stronger than what one insignificant "book critic" could overcome. What Heuvelt does equally well is characterization. The horrors creep up from within as our tragic protagonists are no longer capable to suppress their inner demons.

As the month goes on their situation is getting particularly dire. Mental and physical illness haunts them as maybe it would have under more normal circumstances. What I loved about the story was how vividly the characters reacted to their fates. Sometimes we do things and afterwards think that we were lucky and that things might have turned out much worse. In November they learn (again) that things can go bad and that then you have to take responsibility for your mistakes (i.e., for your bad actions whose bad consequences were not somehow avoided). Before acceptance they are in the familiar circle of when you ask yourself, Why did you do it? I don't know. I really don't know.

There are individuals that in November feel the full force of their guilt. There is one man who resorts to alcohol to drown his conscience. His daughter suffers from a bipolar disorder that makes her lose control over the person she wants to be. I think in these moments the author expresses genuine empathy for human weakness (I think I said something similar on The Poppy War?). It's not simply a fault of character (an ethical fault, so to say); weakness may result from the external pressure getting too much. It's for this reason that the more fortunate have it easier to succeed morally, too.

At least superficially, There is an obvious metaphor here, one that the story itself calls out at one point. Isn't many people's happiness made possible by the suffering of others? Isn't yours, at least to some degree? From this angle happiness is presented as the ability to overcome guilt. Moreover, when something bad happens (like an unfortunate medical diagnosis, say) won't you think that you deserved better? I highly enjoyed these moral undertones, especially since the story never gets unduly preachy.

Another interesting aspect of the plot was how the children are introduced as the product of their parents' good fortune. They are unusually gifted and especially the boy's interest in very early jazz was a cool touch. Actually, their subplot too were somewhat rooted in tradition. The children's exploration of the forbidden woods reads less as Stranger Things adventures than as mythical fairy tales.

Naturally, the first couple of chapters the cultists' intrigues are clouded in mystery. Admittedly, it's not the most engaging kind of opening and mostly serves as cover-up for some holes in the premise. But at the end of Part One it culminates in a climax that thoroughly shook me up. The way they exploit the teenager's struggle with severe depression and his suicidal spiral was incredibly sinister and shameless.

November is the kind of horror whose supernatural premise is mostly pretense. If you are not negatively triggered by how the story tackles themes of psychological and ethical significance, then the depths greatly add to the overall atmosphere and round up a fully convincing tale of horror.

Rating: 4/5