#BookReview ‘The Book Of The Baku’ by R.L Boyle

About the book…

Sean hasn’t spoken a word since he was put into care. When he is sent to live with his grandad, a retired author and total stranger, Sean suddenly finds himself living an affluent life, nothing like the estate he grew up in, where gangs run the streets and violence is around every corner.

Sean embraces a new world of drawing, sculpting and reading his grandad’s stories. But his grandad has secrets in his past. As his grandad retreats to the shed, buried at the end of his treasured garden, The Baku emerges.

The Baku is ancient, a creature that feeds on our fears, and it corrupts everything it touches. Plagued by nightmares, with darkness spreading through the house, Sean must confront his fears to free himself and his grandad from the grip of the Baku

 I genuinely squealed so hard when I was approved to read ‘The Book Of the Baku’ on Netgalley, I think I must have harassed the heck out of poor Sarah at Titan about this book (please don’t try this at home kids!) with at least 5 emails, I was so excited after reading the concept of this quite extraordinary debut novel.

Here, RL Boyle creates a deep and complex mythology based on the Japanese myth of the baku, and makes it entirely her own. The concept of an elephant headed god who is steadily moving closer and closer to Sean across the pages of the book, made me think of that old saying, ‘an elephant never forgets’, which is entirely apt for this startling and original book.

Sean appears to be mute, removed from care on the request of his grandfather, a Roald Dahl-esque figure who spends hours, even days in his shed, writing. One of his books, written after the death of his wife, the grandmother Sean never knew, attracts Sean’s attention and, without thinking, he takes ‘The Book Of The Baku’ off the library shelf and begins to read.

Each tale is a child’s nightmare, related in horrific detail , enough to make the skin crawl. The children call to the Baku to come and eat their nightmares, to give them a night’s sleep. They write their nightmare down and feed it to the Baku, but when their fears are no longer satisfying the hunger, he comes for their hopes and dreams instead…

Woven into this horror are Sean’s ‘Before’ chapters, where he and his friends ran loose across an estate called the Dulwood(appropriately named, the children there are seen as ‘dead wood’, no point in putting anything into them as they are born lost causes). In the days ‘After’ there is the sinister implication that something terrible has happened, something so bad it has struck Sean mute. His grandfather seems well intentioned but uniquely unable to cope with his grandson as he takes him home to the Paddock-another well named place, where freedom to roam is implied, but, despite the obvious wealth, this is a prison of another kind.

The book is full of motifs and contradictions, as Sean before created graffiti art of him and his 4 friends, and was the hopeful one of the gang (‘we all escape or none do‘), he names his art ‘The Escapists’. In his grandfather’s house, he uses the most expensive implements at his fingers,to create Michaelangelo’s ‘Prisoners, which express his feelings about fear, anxiety, and being out of place.

As he spends more time in the Paddock, the beautiful garden and the garden ornaments turn from serene to sinister, tendrils start to come out from under the writing shed, Grandfather becomes undone and is either drunk or writing. The flowers and trees rot, and the corruption comes closer with each night Sean spends there. As the nightmares of other children seep into his dreams, he awakens to find the Baku has left him notes under his pillow , on his chair, and in his bed.

The Baku is creeping closer, in vividly described scenes that chill your very marrow, Sean seems trapped and imprisoned by fear, unable to speak, to use his voice. His entire life has been stolen away from him, his future now financially possible, but his heart pulling him back to his roots.

In essence, ‘The Book Of The Baku’ is about the process of creating art, and how we use it to express our feelings of rage, grief and use it as a gateway to another realm. Reminding me of ‘The Tommyknockers’ and of ‘The Thief Of Always’, yet entirely it’s own beast, this book has a loud and resonant heart in the shape of Sean, the bravest boy I have yet to encounter in the pages of a book.

His resilience and ownership of his mutism and physical deformation is incredible, his voice, his words have been stolen by adult oriented trauma, and he will not, cannot speak. But the way he cares for the abandoned hoglets that he finds, and tries to feed himself and bring his grandfather back from an all consuming grief honestly broke me. I was reduced to tears, this was poverty and lack of life chances by irresponsible adults which is seen all too often , yet rarely conveyed with such authenticity. It is a simply stunning novel, and I cannot say anymore than that as my throat is sore with tears and my words are just not elegant enough to explain.

About the author…

Rosanna Boyle studied Classical Civilisation at the University of Leeds, after which she worked in a variety of jobs – none of which had anything to do with her degree.

Her debut, The Book of the Baku, will be published in 2021.
Rosanna lives in Leeds with her husband and three sons.

Links-https://www.scifinow.co.uk/books/the-book-of-the-baku-cover-reveal-and-excerpt/

Twitter @rlboyley @TitanBooks