Review: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Recommended.
I’ll be reviewing Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls in greater depth for Strange Horizons a bit closer to its publication date, but I wanted to collect a few thoughts here.
Conor’s mother has cancer. His dad is busy overseas tending to his new family. That leaves just Conor, his mum, and the yew tree in the backyard. And then Conor’s mom’s health takes a turn for the worse, his grandmother comes to visit, and a monster comes to call.
This is a very difficult book for me to approach or even discuss. My own father died when I was eight after protracted illness, both mental and physical. He took a trip to visit his brother in Tennessee and never came back. I have a letter from him from one of his stints in the hospital. He said when he got out, we’d plant a tree together, watch some cartoons. That never happened.
My mother was lost in her grief. My sister, thirteen, plunged into her own personal darkness. For years, it seemed like I stayed afloat pretty well. I cried a bit, sure, but mostly I was a sunny kid, who comforted the other grieving members of my family and went about my own business, drawing pictures, reading books, playing in the backyard until the sun faded.
Until puberty struck with a vengeance. I hadn’t even known how angry I was until I began to break things. Kicking the vacuum cleaner. Tossing my mother’s flower pots on the ground, shattering the terracotta. Punching holes in the wall. Hitting my head against the brown grubby carpet in my bedroom over and over again.
My story isn’t Conor’s story. That’s the thing about grief. Even though it’s universal–we’ll either die first ourselves (and then, what’s the use of worrying?), or we’ll all face the death of a parent someday. We will all feel that loss, how it cuts to the bone. We’ll be left to rage against the dying of the light no matter how gently those we loved slipped away from us.
But it’s so deeply personal, too. No two stories about grief can ever be the same. Because grief is a greedy, selfish monster. It makes you so aware of yourself, of how your own body remains vital even when everything falls apart. And when a family is grieving, even together, it becomes impossible to really reach out through the interminable black, to make contact, to find commonalities. Because no matter how much you share with them, you are yourself, indivisible, and alone.
This is quite possibly the best book I’ve ever read about grief. Yes, it’s a simple book. But it’s not a simplistic book. It’s an honest book, a true book, a hard book; it made me sob, hiccuping great big tears. If you’ve ever lost someone you cared about, you need this book. And if you haven’t yet? Well then, lucky you. But just you wait–someday, you’ll need it too.
A review copy of this volume was generously provided by the publisher for review purposes.
Phoebe
Phoebe is a 20-something writer who lives in New York State with her husband and cat. She is a dork, not a geek or a nerd.
Her debut novel, Starglass, will be released from Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in Summer 2013.
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