What Hides in the Cupboards by Cassondra Windwalker , A Horror Book Review by Lionel Ray Green
What Hides in the Cupboards is a powerful portrait of grief packaged perfectly in a modern gothic horror novel. Author Cassondra Windwalker delves into the fragile mind of her main character Hesper Dunn and exposes the fractured feelings from her post-traumatic stress. A deep and thoughtful tale, What Hides in the Cupboards is a slow burn using a woman’s anguish as kindling on a subdued emotional fire poised to flare up at any moment.
The story starts simply enough. Hesper is a ceramic artist who leaves Chicago after a harrowing accident and moves to a haunted pueblo in New Mexico. The home has a tragic history. The previous owner was an artist named Leon who died there and left behind several portraits of a boy painted inside the cupboards of the house.
Hesper is unsettled by the mysterious boy in the paintings and shares her thoughts with her husband who dismisses them as nonsense. But Hesper sees ghosts, including a creepy shadow-boy and the haunting image of Leon. She rationalizes her encounters with the supernatural, thinking it’s her imagination working overtime to distract her from the real issues in her life. But are the ghosts real or imagined?
Hesper’s curiosity about what happened to Leon quickly turns into an obsession. She believes unraveling his mystery will free her from the shadow-boy’s taunting and help her deal with her own demons. Hesper thinks finding the truth shall set her free, and she eventually discovers what’s hiding in the cupboards of her mind in a climax as stunning as it is devastating.
What Hides in the Cupboards was released in 2024 by horror and crime publisher Unnerving. Windwalker’s previous works include Idle Hands and Hold My Place. She’s also an award-winning poet whose collection The Bench won the 2020 Helen Kay Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her prose is just as affecting and attentive to detail as her poetry. Her characterization of Hesper and her use of symbolism are masterful.
To me, What Hides in the Cupboards is a perfect novel for book clubs to discuss because there is so much to examine about the boy in the paintings, Hesper’s connection to Leon, the shadow-boy, Hesper’s relationship with her husband, and, of course, the ending. Windwalker even incorporates The Lady and the Unicorn series of 16th century tapestries, which are an interesting art history topic for debate on their own.
Ultimately, What Hides in the Cupboards is a metaphor for the feelings, like regret and self-loathing, that people bottle up while suffering from grief and how they manifest themselves. Windwalker’s message in the book is to forgive yourself. It’s an important message, and Hesper’s road to forgiveness is fraught with obstacles like depression and isolation.
The themes are heavy, and I asked Windwalker if writing about Hesper’s journey affected her.
“I really thought, all the way through, that Hesper would find her way through the darkness and make it out,” Windwalker says. “Walking this path with Hesper taught me that sometimes reason just isn’t strong enough to overpower grief. To be honest, I relate most powerfully to Ginny. I know what it is like to think that I have recognized someone else’s danger and come alongside them, only to lose them anyway.”
Ginny is Hesper’s concerned sister-in-law.
As a reader, gothic horror in general is not my cup of tea, but the lyrical force of Windwalker’s storytelling cannot be denied. I think What Hides in the Cupboards is one of the best novels of 2024. Six months after reading it, I still think about the prowess of the prose and the ending that I should have but did not see coming.
What Hides in the Cupboards by Cassondra Windwalker
Following a traumatic accident, ceramic artist Hesper Dunn trades life in Chicago for the enchanted deserts of New Mexico. But not all is quaint, and it’s far from what it seems. There’s a mystery buried deep in the heart of her new home.
Love, guilt, and grief demand that Hesper remain within the haunted pueblo. To free herself, she must free the trapped spirits…but the creatures lurking in the shadows are not what they appear. Hesper dares to wade through the murky fog of tragedy to uncover the truth. A truth that will be harder to handle than she ever dared imagine.
