An urge to close the shop

I read this book a long time ago, so this will be a difficult review to write. I suppose I was waiting for a heatwave to hit London so I can be in the right mood to write this and a heatwave is something you will wait for for a long time in the UK. But I did spend half of this week sitting in a puddle of my own sweat, so here we are.

Like the main character I feel an urge to close the shop (I don’t actually have a shop) and fuck off somewhere, get lost and be found by a bunch of strangers who seem to have been waiting for me. This is what happens to John Cole, who goes to visit his brother, gets lost and ends up in a strange house with people who know his name and have been expecting him. It’s all very strange and it seems like it’s a place people go to recover and find or lose their faith. The story is set beautifully out of time, somewhere between the times of Biblical plagues and some dystopian future. It’s very en vogue for reviewers to invent new genres when reviewing so I’m going to call it environmental Gothic. And let’s not forget to say ‘claustrophobic’. Apparently, you can’t review this novel without mentioning it was claustrophobic. So yes, definitely claustrophobic. Weirdness prevails.

Of course, Amazon doesn’t have such subtle categories and, I believe, is putting this book in their thriller section or wherever. It also puts Perry’s new book in the ‘romance’ section which I’m sure is just as ridiculous.

Don’t read this book for the plot and the answers, read it for the atmosphere and the words. It’s half a ghost story, half a Biblical parable. I probably didn’t even understand it really but it doesn’t matter. It’s a brave debut, even if it is not perfect. Despite Amazon’s best efforts it avoids categorisation. Oh, and don’t look for ‘likeable characters you can relate to’. Unless you’re super weird.