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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
In THE POSSESSION OF MR. CAVE, his writing turns darker than ever, June 9, 2010
In Matt Haig's two previous novels for adults, THE DEAD FATHERS CLUB and THE LABRADOR PACT, the author skillfully utilized naïve narrators. In both cases, he successfully allowed the reader to use his or her more sophisticated knowledge to fill in the gaps in understanding left by those telling the stories --- in one case a child, in the other a dog. In THE POSSESSION OF MR. CAVE, his third book for adults, Haig does much the same thing. In this case, however, the narrator is far from innocent. Instead, Haig relies on readers to fill in the gaps of credibility and logic left by the growing instability of a most unreliable narrator.
THE POSSESSION OF MR. CAVE takes the form of a book-length letter written by the title character to his 15-year-old daughter, Bryony (called Petal affectionately), whom he addresses in the second person throughout the novel. The book opens with a bloodcurdling scream, as Terence Cave and Bryony become witness to the accidental death of Bryony's twin brother Reuben. Reuben, who has always been a troubled boy, afflicted with a large birthmark and plagued by the teasing of other kids his age, has also never been his father's favorite (as the reader learns gradually during Mr. Cave's narrative). But when Reuben fatally falls from a light post after attempting a daredevil stunt in front of a group of local boys, Mr. Cave falls into a sort of madness.
Terence Cave is no stranger to death --- his mother died when he was a small boy, and his wife lost her life during a robbery when their children were babies. But in the wake of Reuben's death, Mr. Cave becomes increasingly obsessed with protecting the one person he still holds dear: Bryony. Bryony is a beautiful girl, though, right on the border of womanhood, and her loveliness has attracted the attention of several neighborhood boys --- namely one, Denny, who was part of the gang goading on Reuben during that fateful night.
Convinced that Denny has designs to hurt Bryony one way or another, desperate not to lose his daughter to a most unsuitable boy, Mr. Cave grows increasingly desperate --- following Bryony to parties and clubs, lurking outside her school or her friends' houses to catch her in the act of deception, finally locking her in the attic for her own protection. Cave seems determined to freeze Bryony in time --- at the point in her life before Reuben's death, when she was an innocent, bright, creative girl whose main interest was playing the cello --- and to lock her away the same way he might put one of the antiques in his shop behind glass. Mr. Cave is convinced his increasingly violent mind is being controlled by the unsettled spirit of his dead son, but the real question is who's possessing whom.
Matt Haig's previous novels have hardly been light, sunny affairs, but in THE POSSESSION OF MR. CAVE, his writing turns darker than ever. At times, the theme (which plays on the dual meanings of the word "possession") can seem heavy-handed, but the near-compulsive emphasis on having, holding, keeping and protecting aptly reflects Cave's troubled state of mind. Haig effectively brings readers into Cave's unstable interior world, asking them to inhabit this closed-off, deeply unreliable space along with their narrator. Sometimes the intensity of the novel can feel claustrophobic, but the interiority only serves to underscore Haig's compelling, incessant exploration of a damaged mind slowly consuming itself and everything around it.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"You're not a father. You're a dictator. You're a weird, creepy fascist.", May 9, 2009
In this intimate tale a cultured man is crippled by an inability to find or express intimate his love for his daughter. Written as a heartbreaking confessional, author Matt Haig sets the stage for a showdown between a father and a daughter. Compressed, understated, and in the face of intense feeling, the author places the sensitive, isolated and broken down Terence Cave at odds with his spirited teenage daughter Bryony where access to her profoundest emotions and his capacity to articulate his own emotions come forth in a mélange of suspicion, paranoia and murder. This story begins with a devastating tragedy. One night Terence's son, Reuben, dies losing his grip when he falls from a lamppost. While his body lies cold on the pavement, a group of boys stood around watching him die, one of which is Denny, the budding boyfriend of Bryony.
Terrence's life changes virtually overnight, and now he must come to terms with his the loss of yet another loved one. Two devastating tragedies have already taken the life of both his wife and his mother. Reuben was never going to be the high achiever in an academic sense, but his death forces Terence to renegotiate his relationship with Bryony. An owner of a successful antique business, Terence has spent much of his life mending broken things, perhaps in the hope that he can obtain the power of defeating time and of insulating himself. With Bryony, the only one remaining out of all four people he loved, Terence - desperate to keep his daughter close and keep her safe - assumes the role of the guardian angel, trying his best to ward off the corruptive forces of the night. Denny, however is unrelenting in his pursuit of the teenage girl, Bryony gradually succumbing to the boy's affection, drawn along by his rough-and-tumble working class charisma. Only Cynthia, Bryony's grandmother appears to be the voice of empathy as she frantically tries to assuage Terence as his anger shifts slowly into despair.
While Cynthia tells him to "pull his socks up, he has his daughter to feed," a trip to Rome does little to mitigate Bryony's simmering resentment against her father. Culminating in a vivid struggle of wills both father and daughter are set on assured path of destruction. Soon enough he begins spying while she's on the phone with her best friend Imogen who tells her of the sly meetings with Denny. Terence just can't help himself as he follows her into the seedy underbelly of York where Bryony - often drunk and rebellious - seems ever more content to lie about where she goes. Accompanied by a darkening sense of vision and the black flies, the ghost of Reuben constantly whispers in his ear: "Look dad, I'm getting stronger."
In this bleak portrayal of a family on the edge, the author creates a multi-dimensional protagonist beset with anger and hurt as "Terence the Tormented Tormentor" plunges into his designated role, his mind and sense of reality fracturing as he becomes desperate to lay down a set of rules for his daughter abide by at whatever cost. In a story where the desire to protect is the desire to possess and where the desire to love is the desire to destroy, Terence's fatal flaw is his very own nature as he gradually becomes blinded by his thousands of prejudices. Somewhat a middle-class snob and with a soul that eventually loses strength and weakens, it is this man's clenched grip on the past that slowly unravels. When this embattled and embittered hero makes his final stand, he cannot help but be possessed and tormented by his own guilt and culpability in the death of his son and the failed relationship with his daughter. Mike Leonard May 09.
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1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Overwrought, April 30, 2009
I began this book with high hopes, but was quickly discouraged by its overwrought hysterical tone. There's a kind of a breathlessness to this tale which makes it difficult to absorb and enjoy.
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