"Seagulls and Seances" by Robin Drown

One of the joys of reading independently-published books is that from time to time you stumble across nuggets of untamed creativity which might have been stifled by the traditional publishing model. This is such a book. It has a bizarre cast of characters, including a seagull called Mum, but the key characters felt real. It has a plot which was conventional enough to keep me reading while making occasional forays into the surreal, such as when the chronological sequence of the narrative was disrupted shortly before an appearance of some otherwise unexplained time-travellers. It has some great descriptions (such as "Claire cleared her throat and put on her ‘telephone’ voice. 'Who is it?' She had got the pitch wrong and ended up sounding like the Queen after a puff of helium" (Week One Day Three). It has a delightful way of taking figures of speech literally (such as "Claire had been smoking since she was fifteen, with occasional breaks for sleep and Christmas dinner."; Week One Day Four). And there is a lot of humour. But above all, holding the madness together, it is well written.

Unclassifiable. The author references Douglas Adams, which I can see, and Kazuo Ishiguro, which I can't. I was reminded of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien, and less well known offerings such as Road Kill - The Duchess of Frisian Tun by Pete Adams and The Last Simple by Ray Sullivan.

The plot? Talented management executive Claire travels to the seaside town of Reymouth to care for a dog and a seagull after her father is hospitalised. She reconnects with friends (Daisy and love interest Damien) she met on long summer holidays when she was a child. But strange things happen. Is the house haunted? Or is someone trying to kill her?

Selected Quotes:

• "When Claire returned to Reymouth, she always felt herself crash into her childhood, like it was a spectre at the end of the rollercoaster. Her modern-day form - 28 years old and nearly tall enough for it - was dragged back into the past, back outside ramshackle doughnut stalls, wandering lost through clattering and blaring amusement arcades, and in the back of the hot, stuffy family car, racing raindrops." (Week One Day One)
• "Daisy gasped again, inhaling all of the oxygen in the high street and setting off a nearby car alarm.” (Week One Day Two)
• "Money was peacock feathers. If Claire wanted a pretty display, she knew bigger peacocks that Damien." (Week One Day Three)
• “He doesn’t date a seagull. He’s married to one.” (Week One Day Three)
• "She was enjoying her time with Damien too much to be bothered by Daisy and her rabbiting. Interrupting her date to talk to her would have been like turning off the Moon landing to watch a Malcolm in the Middle repeat on the other side." (Week One Day Three)
• "Claire was struggling to stay awake. Each word sounded like it had run a marathon through dream town just to get out of her head." (Week One Day Four)
• "Claire rolled her eyes. She wished she had not, because she spotted a damp patch on the ceiling and now that was the most intriguing thing in the room." (Week One Day Four)
• "Actually, smoking was Claire’s one weakness, and that was if she was limited to one. At last count, which had taken place at 2 o’clock in the morning of her last birthday, she had at least fifteen weaknesses, and smoking was three of them." (Week One Day Four)
• "The seagull, which was sitting on the armchair, gave her a glance so quick it could only have been measured by NASA’s hi-tech bird head recording instruments." (Week One Day Four)
• "Daisy was singing some pop hit that Claire only vaguely recognised. She had heard it in a McDonald’s or, if someone asked, a Costa." (Week One Day Four)
• "The labradoodle was sniffing things he must have fully sniffed hundreds of times before. Sometimes, an immediate threat to his pack – like a car door closing somewhere down the street or a leaf moving awkwardly – would cause him to freeze. Once he had ascertained that he had eliminated the threat by doing nothing at all, he would continue with his strange game of running and stopping." (Week One Day Five)
• "The church was empty. Aside from God, of course, who somehow managed to announce His presence to one and all, but also hide in the corner and spy." (Week One Day Seven)
• "Wine, gin, whisky, absinthe. All the food groups." (Week One Day Seven)
• "She thought back to what Daisy had said. Something, something listening to people. Pay attention or whatever. She shrugged off the rest of her words and sipped from her wine glass." (Week Two Day Two)
• "Daisy! You look nice. You’ve d…” Dyed your roots. No, done your roots. No… “…one your hair different. Are you meeting someone?” (Week Two Day Two)
• "Sounds like… too much pressure. I’ll stick to being a sidekick. Better hours.” (Week Two The Last Day Part Four)
• "They might be serving an evil, underground god, but we still have an NHS budget.” (Week Two The Last Day Part Four)

Not just weird, not just delightful, but well-written too. Enormous fun. There is a sequel which I hope to read soon: Pigeons and Pagans.

May 2023

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God