posted on 27 Jun 2016

The Book Collector by Alice Thompson

Alice Thompson has developed a reputation for producing unusual and challenging narratives and this one, her sixth book, certainly lives up to that billing. At first I really didn't know how to respond to it and very nearly gave up very early on because I was struggling to get a handhold on both the style and the story. It wasn't until I realised I had to surrender myself to what is essentially a modern fairy tale written in the manner of one of the Grimm Brother's more gruesome stories that it began to make sense.

Ostensibly, the tale is set in the Edwardian period but I couldn't have worked that out without a hint from the blurb and although it's clearly set in the 'past', it's only the past in the way steampunk references the past. If you are looking for historical fidelity, forget it - there are so many anachronisms that you'll be spitting feathers in no time. Equally, don't come here for character development because you wont find that either - these people never rise above their role as cyphers.

What this book is all about is atmosphere. The book screams Gothic at you and seems intent on referencing or at least nodding to all the classics of that genre - take a healthy splosh of the Brontes, add some Wilkie Collins, just a spoonful of Poe and mix with Robert Louis Stevenson then stand back and set the wheels in motion.

It's a masterclass in the Gothic fairytale conventions. Young woman marries older man with a seeming obsessive fascination for his books and a mysterious past. What should be a delightful family scene turns rancid as the central female character starts to fear she is losing her mind. There are strange late night visits, time in an asylum and a nanny who may or may not be part of a wicked plot. Beautiful young women vanish and the heroine starts to work out why her husbands most treasured book might be something very unusual and pretty gruesome.

You'd have to have had an imagination bypass not to work out what's going on well before the end but that really doesn't matter too much. The conclusion takes the old conventions and takes them off in a different direction which is quite satisfying and very much in the true fairy story convention of being both a warning and a form of catharsis.

Having had time to think about it, I'm still not sure whether I liked it or not. It has certainly stayed with me since I read it - it's only short and can be read at a sitting or two at the most - and this suggests I'm not going to be able make up my mind on this one until it's spent a bit of time churning around my head.

 

Terry Potter

June 2016