I want to be cynical and say I didn’t like this but I was honestly pretty blown away by it as I read it. I won’t tell you too much about the plot because it might give away elements about this that really work for this novel. But the set up is that we’re in a small town about an hour outside London. New to the town is a married couple with a mother who writes mystery novels, a husband with a regular kind of job, and a son whose imagination, creativity, and other worldness is truly remarkable. He’s currently receiving art lessons from an older outsider artist of questionable but harmless taste.
The novels splits the early narrative into sections narrated by the mum, the dad, and the artist. In addition though we also get the narration of a mythical monster stalking the town chasing down the thoughts and words of the different townspeople.
So the plot goes from here, in which these different voices meet up with the voices of hundreds of others later on in a horrific escalating frenetic section in the middle of the novel. I was deeply in suspense in a way I don’t often get reading and it almost took my breath away how much I was invested throughout this section.
This is a book that absolutely, truly understands how people think and talk and it comes through in brilliant ways.
It’s also short and low stakes, so if you see it, I think you should check it out. It’s got a lot of magical realism going on in it, so if that’s not your thing, so be it. But it’s something else.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Lanny-Novel-Max-Porter/dp/1555978401/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=lanny&qid=1563460856&s=gateway&sr=8-1)