Alex Shearer has written material for adults and younger readers, in various genres. His latest is a complex book which addresses a number of issues about the nature of love, and the power of one individual over another.

Encased in a first-person narrative, the story is presented as a fictionized account of real events in his own childhood written by Christopher Mallan, a young scientist, and then related by a colleague when Chris mysteriously disappears. The book concludes with a chapter in which the colleague discovers a final letter from Chris, to be opened only if he disappears, which explains where he is, and which thrusts the reader even closer to the horrific events of the main story.

Set in an English cathedral city, Shearer's book is a modern take on the Gothic novel, and, like the eighteenth and nineteenth century writers in this genre, uses futuristic technological 'advance' to provide the scientific possibilities for his text. As a child, and already motherless, Chris loses first his father's new partner Poppea, then his father himself. Ernst Eckmann, a disabled and solitary family acquaintance who resents the abilty of others to love and be loved, and who desired Poppea, then adopts Chris. Some years later, when his adoptive father dies, amongst the miniscule figures Eckmann carves, Chris discovers two which move.

This is a dark and frightening book for readers 14+. There is much within it to encourage debate, not least the characterization of Eckmann, whose desire for love becomes controlling and destructive. Although commonly found in the early novels of the Gothic genre, the use of a physically disabled (repulsive and ridiculed) character to represent evil is far less excusable today, and would provide readers with an extremely important example for discussing the historical ideology of discrimination and its justification.

2008-01-01