Creepy kids return
Mysterious children have been such an established element in uncanny fiction that their presence has been, largely, reduced to a knowing trope, their sinister intent subverted into a sort of winking irony. We tend, these days, to greet their appearance with something along the lines of “Oh, there’s a creepy kid, we’re in for it now,” rather than with any sense of dread. It’s to British writer Charles Lambert’s considerable credit that in his new novel, The Children’s Home, he not only returns such children to their former scary state, but also deepens their sense of mystery.
And that’s just the beginning of the strengths of The Children’s Home.
“The children began to arrive soon after Engel came to the house,” the novel begins. Engel has arrived just as mysteriously, taking on the role of housekeeper and caregiver for Morgan Fletcher, who lives alone behind the walls of a stately manor. Disfigured and isolated, Morgan has created a bookish paradise in the house, walling over windows with bookshelves, exploring the world from the safety of the printed page. When the children arrive, literally on his doorstep — first an infant, left in a basket “on the steps leading up from the kitchen into the garden,” then David, a “fair-haired boy . . . with a cardboard tag — the kind used for parcels — attached to his wrist,” then others — Morgan takes them in, giving them free run of the house while Engel takes over their care. Where are the children from? Why are they coming to the house? What do they want? And what of the doctor, who becomes Morgan’s confidante? And what of Engel herself?
The Children’s Home is a powerful construction of creeping dread that skilfully keeps the reader off-balance at every turn. Nothing seems to be fixed in Morgan’s world and truths are slowly revealed that regularly shift the reader’s understanding. The setting itself is a mystery: What first seems to be a fairly standard English country house — a trope as familiar as the mysterious children — isn’t, quite. The walls themselves protect the residents from a world in flux. Or do they serve as a prison? Or is it both?
Much of the joy of The Children’s Homeis the uncertainty at its heart, the uncanny nature of the experience that lingers long after the novel concludes. It’s a genredefying dream of a novel, enigmas wrapped around deeper questions, rooted in the deepest mysteries of all: what is the truth within any of us? What connections do we have to those around us? What hold does the past keep fast on our hearts? Robert Wiersema’s latest book is Black Feathers