A COSMOLOGY OF MONSTERS

RELEASED 30 JUNE 448 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Shaun Hamill Publisher Titan Books

Shaun Hamill’s debut arrives with a fierce buzz and a glowing Stephen King cover quote. That feels apt. A Cosmology Of Monsters may riff heavily on HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, but with its emphasis on North American nostalgia and damaged childhoods, King feels like the more prominent influence.

This is the story of the Turner family. Harry is a horror-obsessed teen who grows up, marries the fiercely ambitious Margaret and then, in a moment of either revelation or breakdown, transforms their backyard into a haunted house attraction called The Wandering Dark – a decision that changes all their lives. When the horrors within bleed out into the real world, children start to vanish and the Turners are touched by tragedy.

While there are supernatural elements at work, the heart of the novel is the Turners themselves. This is a book about the problems that families sometimes face: specifically deep-rooted resentment and the spectre of hereditary mental illness. Hamill writes beautifully and does a fine job of crafting a tangled web of family dynamics. This is where the book most shines, rather than in its self-reflexive streak that both celebrates and critiques Lovecraft. Come for the monsters, stay for the sad and broken characters.