Number 57 - The Vessel - Adam Nevill

 

Isn't she a beauty? Rumour has it that she leans further out of each successive cover of the book and the last person to buy it, she's going to crawl out and... well it won't be pretty.

But don't let that put you off from buying a copy.

By Adam Nevill's standards, this is a very short book indeed, coming in at about 150 pages. There is a reason for that, which is explained in the afterword.

 Jess is a struggling single mother who takes on a job as carer to a decrepit and very senile old woman in a crumbly old vicarage called Nerthus House. Characters forced into bad situations because of cash problems seems to be a theme in Adam's work. Jess has problems other than cash though.  She's a single mother because her ex is an abusive and controlling bully. He's not ready to give up on the family unit, no matter how often she tells him it's over.

When she can't get childcare, Jess is forced to take her young daughter Izzy to Nerthus House while she performs her nightshift. Flo Gardner, her patient, develops an unhealthy bond with young Izzy, and Jess finds herself in a battle for her daughter's affections and her soul.

There isn't much that I would call original in this story. The story follows a well-worn trail and isn't difficult to predict, but Nevill's prose, and some truly weird and disturbing set pieces elevate the material above most other similar stories. His prose actually reminded me very strongly of Ramsey Campbell in this book. There have always been vague shades of Campbell in his writing, but in this book, I'm not sure if it's that the themes are more Campbellian or the writing itself. 

In the afterword Nevill talks about how this started life as a screenplay before being converted to novel form (much like Cunning Folk was) but he's experimented here with making the book entirely plot driven and removed most of the internal views we would normally see in his books (which are usually very character driven rather than plot driven). This is the principle reason for its brevity.

It's an experiment that is largely successful. It was a quick and easy read and created a real atmosphere of dread in its short number of pages.

This blog gets a thank you in the afterword. It's good to see that the work I put into these reviews doesn't go unappreciated. I'm very grateful to the talented writers and I hope that I'm making some contribution to spreading the word.

This book will be formally released at Halloween. My copy is the limited-edition hardback which was sent out early. The mass market editions can be ordered from Adam's website when they become available.  You won't regret it.

 All – Tagged "Novels"– Adam LG Nevill