There’s no other way to put it than the title: Episode Thirteen is the best found-footage novel. Growing up, I didn’t like reading. I would phone in my English classes. SparkNote the books we were supposed to read. And I never did extracurricular reading (except for House of Leaves during my senior year of high school and falling in love with it). That was until I had daily transits into Manhattan for work. After reading David Sodergren’s The Forgotten Island, I had the reading bug. One of the next books I picked up after David’s, besides his second book Night Shoot, was Craig DiLouie’s Episode Thirteen.
Episode Thirteen follows Fade to Black, a ghost hunting show run by husband and wife team Matt and Claire Kirklin. Matt is the typical Jason Hawes type. He’s a believer and wants to do anything in his power to prove they are real, though he’s nowhere near as over the top as Zak Bagans. Claire is a scientist and her role in the show is to debunk the experiences they have. Fade to Black is set to film their next episode, their 13th episode, at the Foundation House. In the 70s, the Foundation House was home to researchers and flower children, called the Paranormal Research Foundation. Along with their team members Jessica Valenza, Kevin Linscott, and their cameraman Jake Wolfson, they embark on this soon-to-be-torn-down large house to find the secrets lurking within the halls.
Little do they know, they might just end up patients of the now-deceased doctors.
As someone who is a very slow reader, epistolary novels piqued my interest. Rather than having to read 20 pages to get through a single chapter, it was refreshing to read two to five pages and quickly be met with a new chapter, which made it easier, and more fun, to read. I might not have been making progress faster than reading a non-epistolary novel, but it was the perception that helped.
Episode Thirteen melds the ideas of multiple different films to create a fascinating, and scary story, while still finding a way to feel unique and original. The novel is told through character journals, transcriptions of videos, emails and texts, and files Claire found from the Paranormal Research Foundation. There is no doubt that Episode Thirteen is one of the most unique novels ever written. Splashes of Session 9, Grave Encounters, Ghost Hunters, and Paranormal Activity shine through in appealing ways, but it’s when DiLouie lets the horrors of the Paranormal Research Foundation shine that the originality harshly breaks through.
One of the most appealing aspects of this novel is the tug-of-war between Claire and Matt. It’s made clear early on that Claire is tired of always being the butt of the story, the stick in the mud who says, “A happened because of B, which is what allowed C to happen.” She loves her husband, but is ready for “real science.” It’s not until everything starts to GO DOWN that Claire has a change of heart (this all winds up to one of the most terrifying sets of pages toward the latter end of the book). When it’s revealed, early-ish on, that this location is actually haunted, DiLouie throws off the gloves and takes no prisoners.
I appreciate how this film broaches the topic of apophenia. As someone who believes in ghosts, the supernatural, and non-human intelligence, I am well aware that, more often than not, what I see is either faked or a series of different scientific properties melding to create what looks, or seems, supernatural. DiLouie brings this topic up in a way that feels natural and doesn’t feel offensive to believers.
Craig DiLouie’s prose is beautiful, and the way he handles this story is worthy of his Bram Stoker Award nominations. The video transcriptions are all revealed to us in the same way, but it’s when we get the character journals that DiLouie gets to flex his character muscles. Throughout the journals, we get deep insights into each character. It’s impressive how he finds each character’s specific voice and caries it through each of their journal entries while still keeping the overall flow of the novel within its overall voice.
The attention to detail and creation of the Paranormal Research Foundation is fascinating. This group of maniacal doctors doped up on drugs and in search of a greater truth, is mainly told through EVPs (electronic voice phenomenon) and files found by Claire, slowly unravels their story into a twisted tale of experimentation and abuse. They’re almost trying to manufacture their own MK-Ultra with the goal of finding a God.
If you’ve never read a found footage (found fiction) novel, I can’t think of a better one to start with than Episode Thirteen. It’s a triumphant tale of love, loss, and the afterlife—those souls who are trapped here from fear, and the ones trapped here from anger. Craig DiLouie is a powerhouse of a horror writer who excels in scaring the shit out of you. If you like ghost stories, original horror, some fun references, and a heaping load of 60s flower power music, then Episode Thirteen is the novel for you.