A Monster Calls

Patrick Ness (author) from an idea by Siobhan Dowd

Jim Kay (illustrator)

Walker Books, UK: 2011; 214pp

ISBN: 9781406311525 

Genres: realistic fiction, surreal

Issues: death, family, grief, guilt, identity, loss

When the monster finally shows up it isn't the one that Conor's been expecting. Instead it's a great Yew come to life, with all its strength, poisonous berries and great age. Still, Conor's seen worse. Was expecting worse, in fact. So why has the Green Man walked into his life?

And why does it want to tell Conor stories? His mum's dreadfully ill, he's being badly bullied at school, his father lives with his 'new' family in America and he and his grandmother clash constantly. Life, for Conor, is bleak. So what if there's a monster as well? It's nothing compared to the recurring nightmare that haunts his sleep.

Patrick Ness is an extraordinarily powerful writer whose prose has a stark, almost brutal clarity that grabs the reader by the heart and hauls them into his central character's painful journey. He does this in The Knife of Never Letting Go and he does it here, yet such ferocious intensity has a raw power, an underlying scream against the terrible, terrifying uncertainties and unfairness of life for many. It is mesmerising; it is heart-wrenching; it is compelling. Rarely does any writer – for adults or children – capture so completely the contradictions that beset those going through the almost unendurable pain of watching a loved one struggle with life-threatening illness; the conflicting desires for peace and recovery at a time when such things are only achievable through death.

This beautiful hardback edition, illustrated by Jim Kay, is generously peppered with evocative, nightmarish images that capture exactly both Conor's isolation and the terrifying nature of his internal and external worlds as they begin to meld. The use of positive and negative images is fascinating – sometimes Conor is a white figure against a black background of the Green Man, other times it is the reverse. Heavy, slightly glossy paper and A5 size pages make this a highly tactile reading experience. The paper dustjacket deserves protecting with plastic but under it is a magnificent dark, bright blue hardcover with the silhouette of a Yew tree, the pale moon floating through its branches.

A novel about grief, loss and above all about love, A Monster Calls is one of those haunting novels where the first reading is as memorable as first hearing a live performance of a great piece of music. Ness has captured a short, agonising, life-changing segment of a child's life and pinned it to the page for others to experience. For all its harrowing pain and turbulence, it should be treasured because readers will walk away enriched, enlightened and more aware than before of this precious, fleeting thing called life with which we have been gifted.

'The monster roared even louder and smashed an arm through Conor's window, shattering glass and wood and brick. A huge, twisted branch-wound hand grabbed Conor around the middle and lifted him off the floor. It swung him out of his room and into the night, high above his back garden, holding him up against the circle of the moon, its fingers clenching so hard against Conor's ribs he could barely breathe. Conor could see raggedy teeth made of hard, knotted wood in the monster's open mouth, and he felt warm breath rushing up towards him.' (p19)

Warning: death of a character