The Unholy Silence: A True Account of a Haunted Idaho Home

by Doug Owen

Rating: ****

In 2007, after several challenging months, Doug Owen, his wife Claudia, and their young daughters, Beth and Allison, moved to an ordinary, 1950s-style white ranch house in Nampa, Idaho, hopeful the relocation would signal a fresh start for the family.

It does herald a new beginning, but not the one Doug was envisaging. The Unholy Silence is his disturbing chronicle of exactly what occurred within that house, the manifestations, malignancy,  and demonic possessions that propelled the Owens into a nightmarish existence, one that eventually tore apart the fabric of the family.

The Unholy Silence is, initially, a raw and immediate account of Owen’s experiences in the haunted Idaho residence. However, the title refers not only to the paranormal but also to the silence that surrounds and pervades the family, silence that is borne from denial and shame.

The move to Nampa followed an unpleasant period for the family, which Owen provides context for. But he wastes little time before taking the reader straight into the incidents that begin to occur in their new home.

Despite these events taking place nearly twenty years ago, an edgy fearfulness permeates Owen’s narrative. At times, it resembles an automatic outpouring, albeit a controlled one, of galloping emotional distress and terrified bewilderment. It’s understandable and makes for a compelling, unsettling, and authentic read.

Indeed, despite Owen, some two decades later, clearly still trying to come to terms with what occurred there and process its devastating effects, his writing retains a singular focus as he unfolds the catalogue of insidious events and relays his responses, both emotional and physical, with candid clarity and piercing insight.

He does not shy away from revealing his own often troubled thoughts and reactive behavior. It’s intense, unnerving stuff that prickles the hairs on the back of your neck.

Overall, every chapter deals with a specific issue and its aftermath. At the end of each, Owen shares a few paragraphs of introspection, entitled ‘Interlude’. Although often anguished, these do provide a much-needed reflective pause to the supernatural torment happening in the house, for both reader and author.

It is relentless. The family is continually plagued by a primordial sense of malign agency, which is independently witnessed and verified by paranormal investigators on several occasions. Owen does not address a skeptical view, and nor should he, this is his story.

As chapters 7 and 8 are reached, family life takes a supremely dark turn. Claudia’s conduct transitions from troublingly bizarre to deeply shocking. All of the family begins to exhibit disquieting behavior, but hers is extreme. It might have been beneficial for Owen, if comfortable, to have provided the reader with a bit more backstory about her and their relationship before moving to Nampa and subsequently.

Owen’s decision to begin conversion to Catholicism is pivotal to the story, both practically and figuratively. The esoteric mysteries and attitude of concealment often present within the Catholic Church play a significant role in Owen’s narrative, the religion segueing from open salvation to silent condemnation.

Occasionally, there is a loop of repetition in Owen’s breathless drive. Although there wasn’t a definitive one within the house or outside of it, for the reader's sake, the narrative needed a stronger sense of closure. A brief epilogue is provided, but it is of a cognitive nature. It would have been interesting to discover what might have been previously present or transpired on that land before the house was built.

Nonetheless, The Unholy Silence: A True Account of a Haunted Idaho Home is an absolutely chilling must-read for fans of the genre. Highly recommended.

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