BOOK REVIEW | THE CHILDREN | MELISSA ALBERT

 

BOOK REVIEW | THE CHILDREN | MELISSA ALBERT

ABOUT THE BOOK

An intoxicating, haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.

 Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods.

 In one, she lives in the wooded shadow of her family's isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of her mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where her magical adventures have made her a household name. In reality, Guinevere's childhood isn't the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and her older brother are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the lichen-clotted woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors.

 Now an adult coasting on her mother's name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family's legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she's spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s creative genius?

 Wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, The Children whispers to you from the hallway outside your bedroom, lights flickering as you turn the pages of a book that didn't seem so scary a moment ago. It's a story for anyone who's ever revisited an old favorite and found it cast in a darker light, the line separating magic and memory blurring as the gap widens between the authors we imagined and the people they turn out to be.

REVIEW

Sometimes, the books we love are written by people who fail to live up to the artistic image that we have built in our mind’s eye.

Melissa Albert’s The Children explores this divide between the public and personal realities through the eyes of the children of a beloved children’s author,  who have been left with their legacy following a tragic early death.

The book follows the daughter of Edith Sharpe, the writer of a series of hugely successful children’s books called The Ninth City. In the books, Edith created fictional versions of  her children as the main protagonists of the story.

However, Edith dies in tragic circumstances before the sixth and final book is completed.

Now fully grown, Guin (or Guinavere) has become the custodian of her mother’s legacy. We join Guin just as she is releasing a memoir of her mother, the woman behind the legend. But unbeknownst to her, her estranged brother Ennis, now a famous artist, has also announced a new art show titled Mother. The news sends Guin, and the devoted fandom into turmoil.

Telling the story through twin timelines, we learn that Guin and Ennis’s childhood was far removed from the perfect childhood the world envisioned. Behind the beloved children’s author was a cold and distant mother, whilst their father, a failed actor now turned painter, was more interested in bedding his models than providing his children with the love and attention they needed. 

In the present day, Guin is attempting to navigate both the public expectations of her mother’s legacy,and the personal reality of the woman she knew. However, the announcement of Ennis’s exhibition threatens to reopen old wounds that have never truly healed.

Throughout the book, Albert explores some genuinely interesting ideas such as familial trauma, how the memories we hold are not as reliable as they seem, the ethics of storytelling and the effects of an obsessive and ultimately toxic fandom. 

However, the book stumbles both in its characters and its pacing, particularly towards the middle of the book.  

There is without a doubt that Albert writes some gorgeous prose throughout and she certainly knows how to turn a phrase or two. But this can all be diminished when both the characters and the pacing affect how the book reads. 

Furthermore, the problems continued right to the end. After all that backstory, all that careful placing of little clues, the ending failed to hit the payoff that the book was building towards. The revelations are understated rather than impactful, leaving the conclusion failing to hit its mark considering the weight of the themes Albert explores. 

In addition to that, it was difficult to actually get what the book wanted to be. Was it a family drama? Was it a cautionary tale on the trappings of fame? And further to that, the book failed to actually announce its intentions. Billed as gothic horror, dark fantasy and elements of  family drama, this blending of genres ultimately leaves the reader asking what does the book actually want to be? And does it accomplish what it sets out to do. And whilst a lot of reviewers loved this blurring of lines, for me, unfortunately, it doesn’t quite get there.

Despite this, there is no denying that Albert has crafted a story that has ambitious ideas and some deftly written prose, but for me the execution never quite matched the promise I felt the novel held.