From the Bookshelf of Appomattox Regional Library System…

[close] Neil Gaiman is a highly respected British-American author of what we call "fantasy". His latest novel, or should we say novella, is published in 2013, and is very short- only 178 pages.

This is a tender and terrifying tale of a seven year old boy who encounters evil very suddenly with almost nobody in the world to help him. Our nameless male protagonist remembers this strange drama of his childhood from the vantage point of middle age. It begins when a man who is a lodger at the boy's house commits suicide nearby, and we come to realize that the suicide is linked to otherworldly forces that have been let loose in this suburban/rural part of Sussex, England. The tale goes from creepy to scary, as a creature from somewhere else gets involved with the boy, taking human form and convincing his parents to let it become a Sitter for him and his little sister.

The only hope for him is a family of three very strange females on the ramshackle farm at the end of the lane- Lettie Hempstock, age 11, and her mother and grandmother. But Lettie seems to have been age 11 for a very very long time- and her family uses ancient wisdom to try to outwit and overpower the thing that threatens the boy with death or worse.

Beyond this summary, it would be appropriate to describe this little book as a sort of fable or piece of philosophy. As in the best cases, the fantasy here does not seem to be fantasy at all in some ways- it is more like basic realism that describes something that lives underneath our own lives, or in the places between that we cannot quite get our eyes to focus on. As is true of the best fantasy, this story returns to our imagination after we turn the last page. We are caught up not just in the story itself, but in ideas that are suggested but not completed- as the protagonist cannot understand all that he is seeing or hearing, but from our vantage point as adults we think we understand more, though somehow not all. If as a reader you enjoy something "different", then this is worth a try. Books do not get much more different than this one, which combines a wonderful dreamy atmosphere and suspenseful plot with fascinating ideas about reality itself and the nature of being human.