Under The Whispering Door by TJ Klune Book Review

This is the second book I’ve read from TJ Klune, after I got through his Cerulean Sea book about a year ago and took this long to end my breather from him. I don’t know about his YA reads (which I really should look into) but his adult reads are generally heavy that can equally depress you and heal you, depending on how you move forward in life after putting it down. Let me put my synopsis of Under The Whispering Door this way; it’s slow, but also unforgettable, and the latter is the much bigger takeaway.

Wallace Phineas Price is our main guy. If you say his full name out loud, you’ll be saying “sss” at the end of every word, essentially finishing each of his names up like a hissing snake. Which is fair to think about when we first get to know him because he’s the head of one of the top law firms in the city and treats every inconvenience, every alternate priority, every desire for a break brought forward to him by his employees, all so ruthlessly, you can’t help but feel someone had to have poisoned his chili and gave him a heart attack. Because that’s what happens to him. He dies of a heart attack. And his spirit, still looking like him, is led by a particular human who can see him named Mei, to a teashop in the countryside called Charon’s Crossing.

There, he is introduced to the small crew of Nelson, a wise old man also dead, Hugo, Nelson’s alive grandson, and Apollo, the spirit of Nelson’s dog. The three of them, plus Mei, run the shop themselves while also giving those who perished and brought forward to them a chance to cope with their passing before they head on to whatever is next in life. Wallace is furious and heartbroken, realizing there was no one at his funeral because he wasted away his existence being cruel and a workaholic who put a bunch of effort into what turned into nothing. But maybe before he crosses, even in death, maybe there’s some wrongs he can right.

I’m starting to see a clear few patterns, at least in Klune’s adult works. For one, I don’t know what kind of jobs Klune has had in the past, but he certainly believes in not letting work get in the way of living your life, and he invents protagonists that begin overly devoted to the craft of capitalism. Cerulean Sea had someone trapped and too scared to explore the world, working his life away to maintain a living and not being happy in it. This one had someone whose chance to live just got taken away, and both characters and character stories deliver the same message of finding room in life to live.

Now to the actual story. Also like Cerulean Sea, reluctant readers might be at first hesitant with both a slow pace and a fantasy universe that doesn’t fully utilize the lore. What Klune also does in his adult books is set up a universe with magic, and politics around said magic, but focuses on one specific, kind of unremarkable part of the world rather than some grand adventure or a dystopian civilization collapse. He really ignores the idea of coming up with epic plots. But Klune is good enough of a writer to make that completely okay. Something we often forget is the more specific a story, the more universal it is. Even if this book is not a thriller per se, what it does have to keep us going really works. First, there’s of course Wallace learning to live, and the transition he undergoes from dismissive attorney to empathetic friend is suitably paced and heartwarmingly transcendent. And there’s also a side story about other souls who lost their way before being able to pass, and a twist that really accelerates the last 100 pages. By the time I got to that part in the book, I was full of sorrow, and there was the atmosphere of not having a happy ending. I was in both anticipation and fright.

The LGBTQ+ romance in this book is pure. I won’t spoil what happens, but the best novels I’ve read that attempt to make a good love story are ones that put two characters through a tale where they don’t just find themselves or protect one another but endure horrors and realize along the way how important being together is to them. That’s a lot, I know. But this one I’m adding to the collection. Under The Whispering Door is a reassuring embrace of a book, its goal to make you feel good, and then make you feel sad about some things, but hopeful they can either get better, or other things will come along.

If you like this, I’d try Everyone We’ve Been by Sarah Everett