SPOONBENDERS

Working class heroes

RELEASED 13 JULY 416 pages | Hardback/ebook Authors daryl Gregory Publisher riverrun

While great power usually comes with great responsibility, for the Amazing Telemachus Family it came with spurious fame followed by anonymity.

It’s the mid-’90s and young Matty has grown up hearing tales of when his “psychic” family nearly made it big on TV in the ’70s. Sadly, they were debunked and sentenced to a life of tedious, blue collar toil. Then, aged 14, Matty discovers that he can have out-of-body experiences. In which case, maybe the rest of his extended family may not be the fakers they seemed?

Spoonbenders is an utterly charming and effortlessly witty tale of a disjointed working class family in Chicago who happen to have many, many secrets – and not all of them of the superpowered variety you’d expect from that brief summary. This is a book that constantly surprises and blindsides you. Although the story features gangsters, government conspiracies, men in black, Cold War rivalries and even a comedy heist, these are all mere gravy. The meat of the story is the relationships, but not in a soppy, sentimental way. The Telemachuses – for all their faults and failings – are an immensely likeable bunch.

The working class backdrop gives the tale a Shameless vibe; the Telemachuses are all dreamers caught in a dreary reality, doing their best to cope with what life’s thrown at them. Told from various characters’ viewpoints, with copious flashbacks, the book is bursting with vibrant characters, nostalgic detail, cheeky cultural references and delightful twists.

Even more incredibly, Spoonbenders manages to deliver a new, very pragmatic twist on time travel, then weaves its implications seamlessly into the family’s affairs in a way that’s both intriguing and, ultimately, touching.

If Spoonbenders were a film it’d be a Wes Anderson remake of The Incredibles. Which, frankly, we’d love to see.

Spoonbenders has been optioned for TV. Daryl Gregory is keen to see season two… ’cause he has no sequel novel planned.

The book is bursting with vibrant characters