The Searching Dead (The Three Births of Daoloth)
In 1953, three youngsters are growing up in a suburban London still shadowed by the deprivations of the Second World War, where bombsites and damaged properties provide perfect locations for easily provoked adolescent imaginations. Of the three children it is Dominic, an only child whose parents are doing their best to instill into their son their own middle-class standards. He is basically a nice boy who, despite his reservations about his parents, tries to maintain a proper respect for them.
This sensitive, imaginative lad is the first to pick up on the odd behaviour of a widowed neighbour who, haunted by her deceased husband, leads the plot forward and into an increasingly complex story involving several of the teachers at Dominic’s school. As incidents indicating sinister aspects of the situation mount, Dominic gets little support from his parents or, even, eventually from his friends and he, alone, faces the most violent supernatural incident which resolves, to some extent, the universal threat which underlies the plot.
The writer evokes very cleverly the location both in time and place of his story: the prim, empty suburban streets giving on to mounds of rubble, gravestones and ruined churches, shrouded in smog. One is in the mood for shadows and glimpses of half seen wanderers in unexpected places. This novel also qualifies as an effective “rite of passage”. Its handling of the children’s relationship with each other and with the adults is well observed and interesting.
Turn the heating up, lower the lights and enjoy.
