SPRINGDALE ARKANSAS NEWS – Sunday, March 31, 1974
First Book Published
THE HOUSE THAT SAMAEL BUILT by Ruby Jean Jensen, published by Warner Paperback Gothic Library, $1.25. This book, released last week, is by a native Northwest Arkansan. Mrs. Jensen, Rogers resident, has written a better story than you will find in many books that have made the national best seller list. Fortunately, for the reader’s sake, the book is in the low price range of the paperback and anyone will get more than his money’s worth in this fast-paced novel filled with excitement and suspense. There is, of course, the old mansion, believed to be haunted, and just a suggestion of the supernatural.
A prologue to the story is set in Nebraska and Tara, a beautiful girl in her early twenties, is attending the funeral of her mother only three weeks following the same rites for her father. The man she has been going with for three years takes her in hand and says there is no point in postponing their marriage more than six months. This will give his mother time to make all the elaborate plans for a wedding worthy of the most eligible bachelor in town. Tara, drained of emotions, agrees.
Tara has been agreeable most of her life. She has been happy in the home with her parents and as librarian in the small town. After her fiancé leaves, she is contemplating the future- living in the home of her in-laws-to-be and sharing a loveless life with Albert Smith is more than she can bear. She snaps out of her lethargy, calls up a friend of her father’s, sells the family property and leaves Nebraska forever.
The story picks up in San Francisco with Tara jobless and down to her last few dollars. A chance acquaintance with a pregnant girl who looks to be about 15, brings out the maternal instinct in Tara and she feels compelled to look after Amy. This is how she becomes involved with Sherwood’s “family”.
It takes only a few hours with the family for Tara to realize this is not for her. With all her money gone (Sherwood takes it as head of the family), Tara makes up her mind to call Albert Smith collect and go back to Nebraska. Anything is better than the mess surrounding her. She tells Amy of her intention and the fright in the girl’s eyes and her pleas for Tara not to leave her make it impossible for Tara to abandon her. She promises to stay with Amy until after the baby is born. The teenager is determined to have her baby the natural way, “. . . just the way our ancestors did”. This poses more problems. Tara knows the puffy appearance and swollen of the girl indicate a need for medical attention. However, the group reacts violently to any idea of contacting anyone outside the immediate family.
The three girls, Tara, Amy and Leda, and three men Sherwood, Fox, and Giles, are suddenly caught up in feverish activity. They have to move out from the “home”, a large piece of tin placed on four stick driven in the ground. Tara overhears Sherwood telling the men, “We have to get out of here, and quick.”
Giles remembers the old mansion he visited as a boy. “Somewhere on the Mississippi, way down south, surrounded by the Black Swamp.” From abject poverty, the group has apparently come into a large sum of money, including a late model car. Sherwood orders the men to get rid of their beards, buy decent clothes. The girls are to be outfitted in style. When Tara balks at taking orders from this person, and is the only one to stand up to him, Amy becomes terrified again. She convinces Tara to play along for the time being and stay with the family. Giles’ wealthy aunt, who owns the mansion in the nebulous state in the deep south, has, at his request, sent him a large sum of money. They must present a decent appearance on their trip to the new home and it wouldn’t make sense to arouse unnecessary suspicion as many unenlightened people frown on their preferred way of life, and their travel might as well be spared any unpleasantness.
Tara thinks there may be a grain of truth in what Sherwood is telling her and takes mental notes on all money that is spent on her so that she may one day pay it back.
In the small southern town where the “family” is headed, a young real estate broker in business with his father, is checking out the mansion. The estate is handled by the realtors and is something less than a profitable piece of property. The tales handed down through generations, of a haunted house that still had a forbidding presence, discourages would-be buyers. The most recent tenant is behind in his rent and Scott, while not caring particularly whether the artist has packed up and left, or is still living there, decides to drive out and take a look at the place. His investigation leaves him shaken and is an experience he will never forget.
The family eventually finds its way to the swampy site and Sherwood finds the gloomy, almost inaccessible site perfect for the needs of his group. Tara finds a bedroom on the second floor she considers suitable for Amy and herself. She has decided that she will share the bedroom with Amy circumventing any notions that any of the others might have of sharing a bed with her. She begins that task of making the room habitable.
“Did you ever see eyes like that on a little boy?” Tara said musingly as she looked up at the painting she had just uncovered. It was the portrait of a child, and from it the eyes—large, fiery, yellow—glared at her like something from an old horror movie . . .
Amy replied. “But”, she continued happily, “this will be a lovely place to have my baby. This was a child’s room. And look, there’s a peace sign on the painting. That’s a very good omen, isn’t it, Sherwood?”
Sherwood looked for a long while at the vertical bar with the inverted V at the bottom of the painting.
“That’s no peace sign,” he finally said. “It has no circle around it, and it was made a long time ago. No, it’s no peace sign, Amy, it’s the sign of the devil.”
The above quotes set the mood for the strange sojourn in the mansion—sometimes bearable, sometimes uncomfortable—and more often terrifying. Tara discovers that all babes are not innocent, all hippies are not loving, and a house where nobody lives is not necessarily uninhabited.
