Two wildly different tales come together
While story of an 11-year-old boy plays out, author introduces a second stand-alone narrative
In his sophomore novel Blood Fable, Oisin Curran sets up two interlocking, wildly different narratives.
In the first, an 11-year-old boy struggles with tensions of life with his New Age parents in a cloistered Buddhist community in backwoods Maine at the dawn of the 1980s.
In New Pond, on the cusp of Ronald Reagan’s election, a group of spirited idealists attempting to build a utopian community are forced to contend with revelations of inappropriate sexual conduct from their guru.
Wise beyond his years, the unnamed narrator observes and responds to the hypocritical actions of the adult world around him.
When Iris — his skeptical mother — is diagnosed with cancer, Myles — his opinionated, literary father — struggles to keep the house together while juggling a mounting pile of bills. As winter closes in on the community, the family is forced to grapple with its uncertain next steps.
While this first story plays out, Curran inserts a second stand-alone narrative into the book.
The “novel-within-a-novel,” narrated by the boy to his parents, allegedly contains visions of the boy’s adventures in a previous life. This magical world — replete with underground cities, underwater kingdoms, giant animals and shapeshifting characters such as an alcoholic “comet rider” named George — provides an effective, if not wholly believable distraction from the family’s troubles.
Curran has an exceptional imagination, and this second tale holds all the mystery and suspense of a Harry Potter or Hunger Games adventure.
Slow-moving initially, the story soon finds its feet and delivers unrequited love, murder, vengeance and whiffs of immortality.
And while Curran is similarly adept at delivering a convincing account of post-1970s idealism gone awry, the two narratives often struggle to cohere, competing with one another for the reader’s attention and sympathy rather than properly commenting upon or illuminating one another.
Toward the novel’s second half, a host of visiting adult characters steal focus from the more vulnerable and ultimately more damaged younger members of New Pond.
As a result, the novel’s final indictment against false prophets and demagoguery feels less convincing than it might have been if Curran had kept the emotional spotlight more firmly fixed on his young, impressionable narrator. Trevor Corkum’s novel The Electric Boy is forthcoming with Doubleday Canada.
Slow-moving initially, the story soon finds its feet and delivers unrequited love, murder, vengeance and whiffs of immortality