#BookReview ‘A Cosmology Of Monsters’ by Shaun Hamill

About the book…

Noah Turner’s family are haunted by monsters that are all too real, strange creatures that visit them all: His bookish mother Margaret; Lovecraft-obsessed father Harry; eldest sister Sydney, born for the spotlight; the brilliant but awkward Eunice, a gifted writer and storyteller – the Turners each face their demons alone.

When his terminally-ill father becomes obsessed with the construction of an elaborate haunted house – the Wandering Dark – the family grant his last wish, creating themselves a legacy, and a new family business in their grief. But families don’t talk about the important things, and they try to shield baby Noah from horrors, both staged and real.

As the family falls apart, fighting demons of poverty, loss and sickness, the real monsters grow ever closer. Unbeknownst to them, Noah is being visited by a wolfish beast with glowing orange eyes. Noah is not the first of the Turners to meet the monster, but he is the first to let it into his room…

Huge thanks once more to Titan Books who gave me access to a ebook copy of ‘‘A Cosmology Of Monsters’, the debut novel from Shaun Hamill which is out in the UK from June 2nd.

My inital reactions to it were that it was not quite as described, though I would be hard pressed to write the synopsis for this book. Flipping back and forth in the timeline of the Turner family, alternately told from various narrative perspectives, the central motif is about what are, and are not monsters. The notion of free will and self determination in the respect of those you love, and dealing with forces outside of your control is viewed through the prism of letting the monster into your house. But what if the monster was already inside?

Margaret and Harry’s courtship is dealt with in a whirlwind opener after son, Noah, details the life of a man he never got to meet. Instead of toeing the line and doing the ‘expected’ thing of a woman in the late 60’s (marriage whether you like it or not, children within the bounds of wedlock etc) Margaret connects with Harry over their love of books. Initially irritated by him, they have an undeniable chemistry boosted by the unlikely cupid of H.P Lovecraft.

Now a confession-I don’t ‘get’ Lovecraft, so was hoping this would be be a Cthulhu-esque tale that would be beyond this simple reader’s comprehension. But somehow, this manages to be both Lovercraftian and yet not, it managed the rare feat of getting me to consider revisiting HP’s work.

Anyhow, flash forward to Margaret and Harry being older, having 2 daughters and living in the small town of Vandergriff, and making a fairly pedestrian living. All Harry’s books and comics are being stored in a unit as they have run out of house to store them in, and Harry begins an obsession with Halloween which will have repercussions throughout the Turner family tree…

He wants to build a haunted house , something to bring the neighbourhood together in a state of terror, something unforgettable and huge. His plans and schematics become part of the Turner daily routine with family and neighbours joining in, it is a roaring success that becomes a part of the neighbourhood mythological landscape. Until Harry begins to start acting strangely, and, as Margaret finds out that she is pregnant with Noah and on the verge of leaving her husband,is diagnosed with brain cancer.

His only relief in his final days is drawing plans with Margaret of his next great scheme, the Wandering Dark, a haunted house which will become a state wide attraction.

Barely making ends meet and with a young family to raise as a widow, all of Maragret’s dreams of going back to uni and making something of her life are abruptly curtailed, until the year her eldest daughter, Sydney, is 17.

Suddenly, a confluence of happenings create the environment wherein Harry’s final ambitions can become a reality, young people begin to disappear and Noah discovers that monsters are not merely contained within the pages of his father’s books…

This is a coming of age tale, superbly rendered in a very recognisable small town America, across the later half of the twentieth century. The way that things become part of a myth and the way that monsters are created-as well as their intrinsic goodness/badness-is so beautifully explored in the context of familial expectations, mental health, homosexuality and genetic predispositions to maladies.

Each of the family becomes a very real person, so by the time the actual monsters appear, you are heavily invested in their wellbeing and emotionally connected to them. Sydney, with her ambition to recognise her father’s existence, Eunice and her emotional fragility and Noah, the after thought, the one who is most ignored and wanders through life like a ghost. He has a strange kind of freedom afforded to him because of this, and whilst no one is watching, he lets something in that no one has warned him about, something that interacts with him whilst everyone is busy taking care of their own needs.

There is such a sense of overwhelming grief that it creates an overwhelming beauty that permeates this book, hard to believe that it’s a debut novel. The building of a haunted house which in itself becomes haunted by lost dreams and love is a brilliant motif-the way that it is resurrected with what is found scary and relevant as time goes on is so painfully prescient in a world struck down by a pandemic. At a time where the reality of life is constantly changing whilst people stagnate-and even die-in their homes , the scariness of the everyday is not lost on this reader. The real world is now the haunted house , the extrinsic and intrinsic nature of fear and death are rapidly flipping the script on everyday existence.

Deep and resonate with one hell of an ending that flipped the whole story and made me want to start it again, this is a definite contender for one of my books of the year. It’s scary in all the right ways, engaging, and epic in scope.The entire narrative just sweeps you away, the whole concept of belonging, obligation to family and what lengths you go to to protect them is outstanding.

About the author…

A native of Arlington, Texas, Shaun Hamill holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He lives in the dark woods of Alabama with his wife, his in-laws, and his dog. A Cosmology of Monsters is his first novel.

Links-https://www.shaunhamill.com/

Twitter @shaunhamill @TitanBooks