📖 Book Review ~ Edith Holler by Edward Carey

 

Gallic Books
3 October 2024

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Norwich, 1901. Edith Holler spends her days among the eccentric denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave.

Fascinated by tales of the city she knows only from afar, young Edith decides to write a play of her own about Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy, Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar woman named Margaret Unthank, Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre, and her play – the one thing that’s truly hers – from the newcomer’s sinister designs.

Teeming with unforgettable characters and illuminated by Carey’s trademark illustrations, Edith Holler is a surprisingly modern fable of one young woman’s struggle to escape her family’s control and craft her own creative destiny.

📖 My Review..

Entering a novel by this talented writer is like descending into a parallel world where all rules are changed and where macabre meets superstition and however fanciful these ideas may be, what is guaranteed is a world quite unlike anything you have witnessed before.

Edith Holler is born and brought up in the family theatre in Norwich. Fated never to leave in case of dire consequences, Edith is a strange solitary figure caught up in her own imagination. When she chooses to write her own play about a grotesque figure known locally as Mawther Meg, it lets loose this author’s vivid imagination in a quirky story.

I can’t find the necessary words to adequately describe the contents of this book which would do it anything like justice, so I won’t spoil what is either a magnificent world of horror fiction or a rather bizarre fall into a dark fairy tale. Imaginative, descriptive and with Carey’s trademark gift for bizarre storytelling, Edith Holler captured my imagination especially with the added joy of Carey’s trademark sharp line drawings which do so much to enhance the narrative. There is no doubt that Edith Holler is every bit as good as this author’s previous novels which are always presented with such a unique perspective. 

About the Author

Edward Carey is a novelist, visual artist and playwright. He is the author of three acclaimed novels, Observatory Mansions, Alva & Irva and Little. Born in England, he teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. 

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