Book Review: Haven by Mia Dalia (2024)
CamCat Books
Once in a while, I encounter a novel that feels like it was written almost purely from inspiration, blatantly (and bravely) disregarding many of the guidelines of modern fiction. In a time when the three-act structure has been so finely tuned, and inciting incidents simply must occur between the tenth and twelfth percentile of a book’s length; when there must be a capital-letter Turning Points, Complications, and a Dark Moments or Crises, it feels so damned good to find a novel where a writer seemingly just sat down and wrote a good story on instinct. Sure, if scrutinized it’s probably following the recommended script fairly closely, but the illusion that this burst forth from an author’s head, fully formed, it an attractive one.
Such is the case with Mia Dalia and her pleasantly anachronistic new novel, Haven, which carries an unshakable patience and persistent reflectiveness through its three-hundred-odd pages to great result. On the surface its a story not unlike The Shining, where a family makes a sojourn to a large house in a remote location, only this time the spirits that haunt the halls are insidiously picking apart each individual member and setting them against each other, and rather than have a primary villain, readers get to glimpse the darker side of each character.
Somewhere Near Water
The Baker family at the heart of the story is terribly mundane. The husband, Jeff, is a wholly unremarkable sales professional who never quite managed to build anything else in his life, and his wife, Jenna, has made her body into a monument to health in an effort to compensate for the grueling dissatisfaction she feels about the choices she made on the way to middle age. Their kids, teenagers JJ and Jessie, are twin cautionary tales about the social and psychological dangers of interactive digital media. In many ways, the Bakers are a terrifyingly median middle class American family in 2024, with dwindling aspirations and burdensome-but-managed debt (Jesus, that strikes close to home). Yet, they’re incredibly fortunate in one exceptional way: a mysterious and wealthy dowager named Aunt Gussie (though she has many other monikers) left her wider family a monolithic lakeside mansion to use on a rotational basis, and it’s the Bakers’ turn to have a month at the house called Haven.
Sure, the WiFi sucks, but isn’t a month away from the disappointments of modern life exactly what every bang-average heteronormative family needs to turn the corner and find that spark again? Perhaps so, but there's something going on at Haven, and it’s got a plan to play out—invisibility and insidiously—around the Baker family. It starts small: an errant cruel thought; an extra dose of sibling antagonism, a too-long pause reflecting on the choices that brought them there. The seeds of resentment that exist in every family find rich soil in Haven, and the growing season is just ahead.
“…such emotions are easier to access in the abstract.”
I was deeply impressed by how well the characters were realized in this novel. Dalia showed an advanced grasp of people and their somas, and I wish more authors possessed this depth of understanding when it came to writing human beings. I think this is especially remarkable considering the characters are so safe, almost archetypal. While all variations of J. Baker (their names all start with the same letter–did you catch that?) are decidedly milquetoast, the author explores each and tries on their perspective with a surprising amount of detail. There’s really something to be said about writing mundane personalities well, of finding the snapshot moments where they really express what makes them work. This was one of those books where I reread a passage every few pages, as the quality of the character developments are almost without peer. It’s not something that fits in every novel, but in something contemplative and slowburn like Haven, it works so well.
Dalia’s ability to really get inside a character’s head and employ their reasoning in a convincing-yet-entertaining manner marks her as a talent apart from so many other writers. Similarly, with the embryonic teenager personalities, it’s so easy to slip into cliché or pantomime, but she did a remarkable job of helping me see through the eyes of a bulimic teenage girl and her video game-addicted brother, who wears his antisocial inclinations like armor. There’s a real depth here to each, and when you combine that with the patient voice and willingness to dwell and digest that is part of Dalia’s writing style, you come out with characters who can be unremarkable in their attributes and yet tremendously memorable.
“Her books were all the same”
From the first page, Dallas prose is remarkably considered, possessed of a terribly relatable connection to the inherent disappointment of human existence. I was genuinely giddy at moments, rapt with appreciation for the attentiveness, cadence, and precision of the writing. For all the praise I would heap on the slowburn and deliberate components, this novel also balances its genre elements remarkably well. Time and time again, Dalia would slip in a genuinely creepy tidbit or background detail to remind me that this was, indeed, going to get dark before it was all over.
Ultimately, the story keeps its secrets for a long time, and while I find them suitably developed when they are eventually revealed, I think some readers will definitely round out the last 20% of the novel wanting a bit more explanation on certain aspects. Broadly speaking, Dalia structure and style is closer to the best authors of the 19th or 20th centuries than the middling authors of today, and if you hold an appreciation for such, Haven feels like and especially good read.
Final Thoughts
Haven is a mindfully-written and masterful haunted house story that uses its characters to their full effect. Once you’ve gotten to know the Bakers and seen them to the crossroads where redemption and despair intersect, the mysteries inherent to Aunt Gussie and her strange old lakehouse reach out and drag them along another route entirely. Equal parts Shirley Jackson and Joyce Carol Oates, Haven succeeds at being both human and haunted. Mia Dalia has made an immediate fan out of me.
Score: 8.7
Strengths
Exemplary mundane-modern characters, each of which feels like they were written by an author dabbling in semi-autobiographical fiction
Expertly paced, building dread with development throughout
Feels uniquely uncompromised in its vision
Weaknesses
May be too slow for some readers (booo, those readers)
Ending will likely be divisive, though I liked it…
You can purchase Haven through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or preferably, through a bookstore in your community.
You may also like: Linghun, Sundial, Starve Acre, The Shining
