Look, most of the people reading this know what pleasure there is to be found in a book, right?
I know that I’m probably not talking to the uninitiated here. If you are one of those whose view of a bookpile fills you with joy, where a picture of someone in front of a bookshelf leads you to scrutinise the wall to see what’s there, where your idea of heaven is to wander through a bookshop with unlimited resources (hasn’t happened here yet, but you never know!)
I’ve tried for years to try and encapsulate what that feeling is and why we feel it, to try to put into words and tell others why I read this genre and these books. Is it the unbounded potential that an unread book offers? Is it the fact that by sharing we are part of a select group who ‘get it’ in defiance of all those who don’t? Or, alternatively, is it that I am inherently selfish, and I love the fact that a book I love becomes mine?
A Cosmology of Monsters is a book that gets as close to that feeling as I’ve read in a long time, that not only acknowledges my response amongst others but celebrates it – all of it, in a genre way.
To be fair, my SFFWorld colleague Rob H. Bedford mentioned it last year when he reviewed it on its US publication date. The fact that it was probably his favourite book of the year should have given me an idea of what to expect – we are fortunate to read a lot of stuff over the course of a year and putting it bluntly it usually takes a lot to impress us these days.
And yet it still didn’t prepare me for what a joy I found this book to be. Imagine a story that combines Stephen King with Ray Bradbury, part Addams Family with a touch of H P Lovecraft and even Stephen Spielberg, and you might just get close to what this book is about. I cannot believe that it’s a debut novel. It’s weird, funny, clever, nuanced, and perhaps most of all it’s filled with love for the genre that you will recognise if you love it yourself.
And it’s also weird and creepy when it needs to be.
The book begins like one of those “Let me tell you about my life” kind of literary biographies, like Forest Gump or The World According to Garp. Although we don’t know it at first, the story is a narrative told by Noah, the youngest child of the Turner family. It tells of how his mother Margaret and his father Harry met in the Sixties, and the life they led with his older sisters Sydney and Eunice before Noah came along. Margaret runs a comic bookstore, father Henry sets up a haunted house amusement arcade.
The story jumps forward and later we find out what happens to the family when things take a more sinister turn. Noah’s ‘Friend’ is more than the imaginary one we expect at the beginning. We discover what happens to Noah, Sydney and Eustace as they grow older – not all of it is good! – as they try to continue their father’s legacy and we also know more about what lies under the bed and outside the window. As the children become adult their different personalities come to the fore and they become aware of a bigger world out there. (The clue’s in the title.) There are consequences for all concerned.
Initially the prose is warm and precise, creating that knowing glow of familiarity, of families and lifestyle. Noah speaks with a combination of wide-eyed knowledge and mundanity, with an understanding of unusual things in a way that many here will identify with, in a way that is almost Bradbury-esque. As the book progresses and we invest more in the characters things become more darker and much more mature in tone and style. This is quite disorientating, even uncomfortable, yet as a coming-of-age novel rather appropriate. When the strange stuff really starts happening, we know enough about the characters and the context to keep reading. The ending was not as strong for me as the start, but it is good.
In summary, A Cosmology of Monsters is a story about life and love and monsters. It sang to me with joy and with understanding, a book that shows that the author ‘gets it’, whatever it is that we like and love about the genre. It made me feel privileged to share that feeling of what we all hope for when we read a book. Shaun gets it and is able to communicate that through his prose.
It also makes you think about the question: What if those monsters outside or in the wardrobe are real?
Admission – this was one of those books I wasn’t going to read ‘properly’ for a while – at the time of writing this, it’s not due in the UK for another few months or so, after all! – but A Cosmology of Monsters dragged me in, refused to let me put it down and made me keep reading it. This is one that I’m recommending to people looking for a Dark Fantasy book to try, one that I will happily reread and buy copies for others to read. It’s weird, but in a good way.
A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill
Published by Titan Books June 2020
ISBN: 9781789094114
448 pages
Review by Mark Yon
