I adored the first third of this original novel set in a village in rural Yorkshire ("Gran said they call Yorkshire 'God's Own Country', but I'm not sure that he liked this bit of it"; Ch 21). It is told in short chapters in the past tense from a multi-first-person PoV. Hairy, hoofed and horned teenage Peter (Pan?) lives with his dad in a cave on the moors, mostly naked, and is a promising Physics student at the local sixth-form college where he gets teased because of his unusual appearance. His girlfriend Lauren, who lives with her dad and leonine Mr Lion, a DJ, hears plants having conversations. But even as Peter and Lauren start having wonderful sex, their relationship is threatened by Richard, an apparently young man with cold skin, wearing a long coat and dark glasses, who has just moved in to a remote farmhouse with his glamorous Porsche-driving mother Meg. Their plumber, Jimmy, is a fire-eater, he and his tightrope-walking girlfriend perform with an internationally-touring Circus in the summer. Meanwhile homeless Ali, on the run from drug-dealers, is hiding out in the village.
Wow! What a brilliant mixture of magic and modernity. Mythology positively crackles from the pages. The beastly Mr Lion has a dog called Beauty, trees intertwine like lovers.
Spoiler alert. Meg and Richard are vampires. I lost interest almost as soon as this was revealed. It appears as if almost everyone in the village knows this, including Peter's dad and Lauren's dad, but for some mysterious reason nobody is prepared to tell the young people the necessary information to keep them safe. There are complicated rules as to the number and spacing of bites on your victim that will turn them into a vampire. The Ali drug angle becomes a side issue that adds a touch of thriller to the last quarter of the book.
Such a promising start. Such a disappointing end.
Selected quotes:
- “The air danced with coins of sunlight” (Ch 1)
- “Jimmy liked girls in the same way there's a child like sweets, they tasted good and made him feel happy.” (Ch 4)
- “I liked to listen to the plants in my garden. The roses whispered, wishing the others would all be quiet. The vegetables sang songs of soup and frittatas. The onions told dirty jokes which made the cauliflowers laugh. The roses blushed and the runner beans tutted and turned away.” (Ch 14)
- “I knew her features so well from the photograph. Now they moved and changed and it was as though a character had stepped out of a fairytale and become real.” (Ch 22)
- “He said, ‘ You're behaving like a child.’ That's how you're supposed to behave with your parents.” (Ch 34)
This review was written by
the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling
and The Kids of God
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