A troubled family is beset by dark visits, as told by the youngest child from a time before he is born. He recounts his parent’s meeting, his sister’s youth and eventually his own life. Not only is his family in shadows, but children where he lives are abducted, never to be seen again. Eventually, the young boy, Noah, befriends a wolfish creature who peers into his room, a monster he calls “My Friend.” Is there danger in befriending a monster? Does it blind us to certain things? What does that make us? Hamill raises these questions, but fortunately for readers of his debut novel A Cosmology of Monsters, he does so in a powerfully compelling fashion.
Noah Turner sees monsters.
His father saw them—and built a shrine to them with The Wandering Dark, an immersive horror experience that the whole family operates.
His practical mother has caught glimpses of terrors but refuses to believe—too focused on keeping the family from falling apart.
And his eldest sister, the dramatic and vulnerable Sydney, won’t admit to seeing anything but the beckoning glow of the spotlight . . . until it swallows her up.
Noah Turner sees monsters. But, unlike his family, Noah chooses to let them in.
The first, most noticeable element of the novel is Hamill’s prose, it sucked me in, I felt drawn to the book very powerfully like a magnet. Hamill’s story begins with the protagonist’s parents (Harry and Margaret) and how they met, fell in love, married, and began their family (daughters Eunice and Sydney, son Noah). When they were on hard times, Noah’s father felt compelled to create a haunted house and Margaret opened a comic book store, both ventures served to way to make ends meet. They call the haunted house The Wandering Dark and if that isn’t one of the greatest names for a haunted house I don’t know what is. The Wandering Dark was successful and a largely a boon for the family, but tragedy struck. Harry’s mental stability slipped and he eventually died, Sydney was one of several children of their hometown of Vandergriff to disappear, Eunice is suicidal, Margaret is withdrawn, and Noah befriends a monster he simply calls “My Friend” for much of the narrative. So yeah, very little normalcy, but despite that, Hamill’s ability to write so matter-of-factly of all of these events is very powerful.
When Noah encounters his “Friend” and they develop a relationship, the monster flies with Noah in tow. Soon enough, Noah is granted ability to float and fly on his own. The monster is essentially a man-sized wolf, but with a cape. I couldn’t help feeling a resonance with the Little Red Riding Hood story, but this “wolf” is friendlier, at least to Noah, than the Big Bad Wolf was to Red. Over the years, Noah’s relationship to his “Friend” evolves in strange, somewhat uncomfortable, but natural ways. I realize that’s a bit of a contradictory statement, but that makes it no less true. As Noah reaches adulthood, the child disappearances continue and in another relatively logical plotline, a group of survivors emerges – the Fellowship consists of the siblings, lovers, family members, whose disappearances are unexplained – much like Noah’s sister Sydney.
He lulls the reader in with what can seem mundane so that when the monster (or monsters) rears its (their) head(s), it comes across just as naturally. Of course there are monsters in the world. Both Harry and Margaret are drawn to horror, dark fiction, and particularly the work of H.P. Lovecraft. You could say Hamill set the foundation for the reader with this fictitious (to the novel) monsters and he also allowed his characters (some of them at least) to be open to the possibility of monsters being real.
With the novel being told from Noah’s point of view, it is structured with built-in time shifts. Each chapter picks up a few years after the most recent chapter concluded so we spend a specific amount of time in Noah’s life, of course those are the most momentous times. Interspersed between these “episodes,” are dark recountings of Noah’s family from a different perspective dubbed “The Turner Sequences.”
There is a lot of gloom hanging over the novel, Noah’s father dies relatively young before his son is born, and the family in borderline poverty. I wouldn’t say this is an upbeat novel by any means, but Hamill’s prose and Noah’s voice is somewhat uplifting, if that makes sense. Or, another way to put it, the mundane horror is offset by the curiosity and almost whimsy of Noah’s approach. Noah is a mostly reliable narrator, but since he is our most prominent view into events, we have little choice in trusting him.
A Cosmology of Monsters is both a love letter to horror with its blatant nods to writers like Lovecraft and King, but a tender, at times elegiac, frequently uncomfortable, sometimes beautiful, but honest novel. Hamill impressed the hell out of me with this novel, I was completely absorbed in the prose and Noah’s story. This was one of the most captivating novels I’ve read this year and (I know I’ve said this quite a bit recently), I wouldn’t be surprised if this landed on best of the year lists or even get some kind of award consideration.
Highly recommended
© 2019 Rob H. Bedford
Hardcover | 336 Pages
September 2019 | Pantheon Books
https://www.shaunhamill.com/a-cosmology-of-monsters.html
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Pantheon Books
