THE LITTLE GIRL WHO WAS TOO FOND OF MATCHES

There’s a bit of Mervyn Peake’s classic fantasy Gormenghast and a whiff of V.C. Andrews’s maudlin gothic Flowers in the Attic in this effectively creepy chamber piece from a popular Montreal author, appearing here for the first time. It’s a tale of two withdrawn teenagers living in a dilapidated and rather otherworldly mansion—one of whom records their stunted existence under the thumb of their tyrannical (also somewhat wraithlike) father. The latter’s death, and the impingement of the “real world” on the siblings’ forced solitude, are narrated in hushed tones that resonate with both suggestive psychological complexity and the emotional coloring of an ancient ballad or folktale.