Number 12 - Lanny - Max Porter

 

Where to start with this one?

Shortly before starting this blog I read Max Porter's first book, Grief is the Thing with Feathers which was very good and very odd and was enough to make me pick this one up last year.

I was worried in the first few pages that this might be pretentious codswallop because of the tricksy looking gimmicks he plays with the typesetting but I needn't have been.  Pretty soon, the visual tics were just another part of the storytelling and I was fully engulfed in the weird little world Porter builds in these pages.

I won't say anything much about the storyline.  I think this is a book that benefits from a completely cold read. 

I will say though that I cannot remember the last time a book had this much of an emotional impact on me. 

The style of writing is unusual to say the least. Part 2 of the book is unique in my experience. the way he wrote that sequence left me reeling. Flashing from viewpoint to viewpoint, giving us ever so brief glimpses at what's happening from a myriad of differing voices.  It's an experiment in writing that could have gone horribly wrong, but IMHO he pulls it off in spades.

In the first section, we're introduced to Lanny's parents, his new art teacher Pete, and  Dead Papa Toothwort, a spirit that inhabits the local countryside, and glimpses of assorted villagers. Through these people's perspectives we build a picture of Lanny himself. This section alternates between funny and deeply moving with ease. A sense of tension builds discretely  The community is brilliantly realised to the point you can nearly smell it.

From part 1 we're so close to the characters at the centre of the story that the events in part 2 are as traumatic for us as they are for the family. The voices of the village add to that trauma, layer by layer. The maelstrom of voices is almst unbearable. It actually made me question my own attitudes when I've read real life reports of similar events.

This is one of the most remarkable books I've read since I started writing this blog. I am truly gobsmacked at the force of storytelling in this book. I loved some of these characters intensely while I was reading it.  Little Lanny himself is one of the most remarkable portraits in words I've ever read. 

This is by turns a moving family drama, a horror story and an enigmatic fable. I can't praise this book highly enough. 

9.9/10 purely because I refuse to give perfect 10s.