The Centenary of 'Pender Among the Residents'

This month marks the centenary of the publication of Forrest Reid’s Pender Among the Residents (1922), a haunted house story set in the small seaside town of Ballycastle, Co.Antrim, N. Ireland, a favourite resort of the author. He set scenes from some of his other books there too.

The titular character, Rex Pender, was based, in his rather dreamy manner, upon Reid’s friend Walter de la Mare. However, his circumstances are different: he is a wounded WWI veteran who has inherited his grandfather’s house in the town.  

Reid acknowledged the novel was ‘a composite tale’, partly ‘a village chronicle intended to be light and amusing’, and partly ‘a rather conventional ghost story’. There is thus a double meaning to the ‘residents’ of the title, who are both the local people his protagonist must get to know and the psychic inhabitants of the house. As often with Reid, the character-drawing is picturesque and convincing, with a particular eye for the foibles that make individuals distinctive.

Pender is researching his family history and becomes absorbed in old portraits and letters. This brings him into contact with an ancient tragedy, and as he looks into this, and pieces together the story, he finds it exerting a disturbing influence upon him.

The novel, in its leisurely style, has a late Victorian, Henry Jamesian pace and poise: Reid was an admirer of James and dedicated his first novel, The Kingdom of Twilight (1904), to him, much to James’ embarrassment.

In Pender Among the Residents, the little town and its society, as well as its seaside atmosphere, are carefully evoked. The rather steady, studied style has not made it a favourite among either Reid enthusiasts or connoisseurs of the ghost story, but it has subtle, observant qualities that make it a worthwhile contribution to the difficult art of full-length supernatural fiction, and I wonder whether it may be under-appreciated.  

(Mark Valentine)