Starred review from September 11, 2023
Hardaker (Composite Creatures) blurs the line between fantasy and reality—and between literary and speculative fiction—in this devastating, mind-bending tale told in split timelines. At 10 years old, David lives in a world full of mysterious happenings: people go missing constantly, his grandfather is researching things he doesn’t understand, and the adults around him endlessly discuss the mysterious so-called “Modern Problem.” When his family tells David that his grandfather has died, David suspects that his grandfather is actually one of the missing, thus launching a yearslong interest in using the man’s left-behind research to find him. Years in the future, an adult David journeys through a mountainous environment pursued by unknown assailants as he attempts to find a door to another world. As these two timelines begin to integrate, how David arrived in this mysterious future becomes clear in a story alight with shocking twists and bizarre imagery. What begins as an eerie fantastical mystery evolves into a far more meaningful tale, interrogating mental illness, grief, and the deep loneliness and isolation of modern life. Readers will have no idea where this story is going, but Hardaker’s gorgeous prose and confident plotting ensure that every step taken toward the answer is a fascinating one. Agent: Ed Wilson, Johnson & Alcock.
June 1, 2024
David has spent a lifetime looking to his older sister for cues on how to behave, feeling like an alien in his own village. David's grandfather understands him like no one else, but then he disappears and doesn't return from his last research trip. David is compelled toward a reckless quest to find the door out of the world that his grandfather must surely have taken. He can't have just died, like Mum and Dad say. Hardaker's (Composite Creatures) lyrical prose pours forth eerie, first-person paranoia and desperation as David dissolves his life in pursuit of a universe where he belongs and will be reunited with the departed. This character study comes alive in audio. Narrator Alan Cammish expresses a young man's angry conviction even in David's most isolated, wounded moments and always includes a note of yearning as he chases impossibilities. Cammish's native Yorkshire accent locates David's village full of "mud men" and missing-persons posters and familiarizes the horrors he wants to escape. VERDICT Mournful meets ominous in this genre-bender, perfect for fans of gothic surrealism or the New Weird and narrated with compelling intimacy.--Lauren Kage
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