"When We Talk to the Dead"

Ian Chorão is a writer and psychotherapist in private practice in Brooklyn, New York. He lives with his wife, who is a filmmaker and professor; they have two children.

Chorão's new novel, When We Talk to the Dead, is his first book of horror.

Like his main character, Chorão appreciates that the space between feeling and creation, reality and imagination is often ambiguous at best.

He applied the Page 69 Test to When We Talk to the Dead and shared the following::

A group of friends, college sophomores, on a bus. Sally, our main character, Maeve, her best friend, Omisha and her boyfriend, Marcus. They’ve just watched a disturbing video Sally has posted on her YouTube channel.

“Maeve is back on the video, scrolling, freezing on the deranged figure lunging at the camera, face blurred with movement, covered in filth and hair, vicious, feral, mouth open like an attack dog.”

Maeve is deeply upset by how disturbing the video is (not on this page, the film is Sally being attacked and killed by a feral human). Omisha and Marcus laugh it off—they’re more concerned with being alone with each other. Maeve knows the film isn’t literally real, but she wants Sally to assure her it isn’t real, in emotional terms.

Sally plays it off, but Maeve’s genuine upset allows Sally to recognize how disturbed the video she made is, and she begins to wonder.

“Looking at the frozen image, Sally thinks, I made this, so whatever it is is real. But what is it? Like a flame or a wave, it is there, but trying to catch hold, it dissolves out of reach.”

This test is wild: you get so much! Obviously, all the plot isn’t on a single page (they are going to a long-deserted island where Sally lived until she was 6 when her family experienced a horrific tragedy) but you’re very much inside the emotional action propelling the story. And all the interpersonal dynamics, which will cause intense strife on the island, are right there. Also there: how much Sally is part of the group, but how much her past and hidden inner turmoil set her apart.

It was surprising to see how much can be there on a single page. The page ends with everyone laughing at Maeve for being so dramatic. Deep down, Sally knows her friend has intuited something that's cause for genuine concern. But Sally joins in laughing kindheartedly at Maeve, underscoring a major theme of the book, the tension between wanting to be seen vs. the desire to hide from what's genuinely upsetting.

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--Marshal Zeringue