I always like to read spooky stories. The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert, is sort of a spooky book. It definitely starts out spooky — children showing up at a manor house somewhere vaguely British, a manor house owned by Morgan, a disfigured recluse and attended to by a housekeeper who also simply showed up one day. There are secret corridors and hidey holes and disappearances, all aping a nineteenth century ghost story. Even the structure, which each chapter starting with a small-font, italicized blurb: In which …
In which Engel chooses a room;
In which medical help is required;
In which Morgan’s library is described;
In which the novel suddenly veers off strangely into some bizarre Soylent Green revenge fantasy plus the Holocaust I think.
Oh my goodness, it’s the aliens all over again. How is it that my super-hero skill is the ability to pick books where random shit is thrust upon the reader? If I could monetize this, I would be wealthy enough that I could buy all the books I want, rather than request them from the public library or Netgalley.
I don’t know. I think the last third of the book is supposed to Mean Something, with bolds and capital letters. I have no idea what that something is. At least I can write in my review that I was flummoxed, because flummoxed is a fun word to say. I thought I was just going to be reading a spooky book, which turned out not even to be that spooky. What does that say about me that I’d rather be scared witless than confused?
As for the comprehensible aspects of the book, it’s decent. Shoulder shrug meh. None of the characters are particularly deeply drawn. There end up being a lot of kids, none of whom have any real characteristics other than David, and Moira, who we are told is Morgan’s favourite, at which point she more-or-less isn’t mentioned again for a good third of the book. We never really know what happens with the disappearances and reappearances. We never really know what happens with a mask. We never really know much. Are they in an alternate dimension? This dimension but dystopic? This dimension, present day? Questions abound. Obviously I have no idea how Lambert wrote this book, but it feels like a book that was cranked out, lovingly cranked out, but cranked out nonetheless, in a weekend. Stretch it out, lose some characters (the doctor? What does he even do? I don’t know one single fact about him other than he is a doctor and he knows how to drive a car), reduce the number of children, up the creepiness, the gothic, the fear, the wolfhounds, the factory, the sister, then maybe we’d have a real spooky story for me to enjoy. Else, it’s just a light novella that can be read in an evening.
The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert went on sale January 5, 2016.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.