Adam Nevill: Cunning Folk, The Vessel, and All the Fiends of Hell

I broke my (admittedly, very short) streak. Last week was busy for me as I had appointments almost every day. Nothing makes me want to take a nap more than someone poking around my head, my teeth, or my lungs, so I slept, a lot. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was working through some leftover wool from a vest project for Christmas stockings. I’ll post both once I get them washed and blocked.

My WIPs project for homeless support is coming along. I’ve made over 40 hats and one blanket, destashed a ton of my yarn, and filled one Rubbermaid container. I’ve got 50% of an amazon list for it, and mostly it’s just me setting up the electronic side for donations. It’s slow going for a procrastinator that’s all too willing to make one more hat than set up social media.

As for reviews, I’ve got everything I’ve read to this point outlined. I want to finish that while I read short story collections, and I’ll potentially be moving to more annotation, spoiler-y reviews. It’s depends on how much emotional labor that takes, and shorter things will always be a part of things since I refuse to write a book report on shit I hate.

Cunning Folk: 3

Neighbors are just the fucking worst. Tom and Fiona buy a rundown house in the country, as Tom dreams of his daughter having the freedom and adventure of childhood there instead of an apartment in the city. There’s just a few things wrong with the entire situation. First of all, the house is empty because the previous owner committed suicide. Secondly, Tom doesn’t have a real job at the moment, so all the money they had went into buying the house rather than saving any to fix the derelict property. Third? Third is the neighbors, with their perfect yard, subtle threats and jabs, and constant frolicking around in their animal forms. Fourth, is those neighbors fucking hate Tom and his entire family, and they don’t really have scruples about how and what they use to hurt them or make them leave. Tom, in his infinite wisdom, only escalates this battle before he realizes the people he’s fighting are using the power of an ancient force that’s been in their family for generations.

It’s the day before I’m posting this. On the edit, I realized I hadn’t actually written anything beyond the summary, so fuck me. This was one of those books I checked out in audio book and couldn’t follow, so I checked out the book on Libby. I couldn’t finish it on Libby for some reason, so I thrifted a copy of it so I might finish it a chapter at a time. It was my shitter book, and it was easy enough to pick up and put down in small bits, even if I couldn’t manage to do more than that with it. The story was solid, just not particularly enveloping.

The Vessel: 4.

Jess is a single mother, trying to escape from the control of her abusive convict of a husband. She dreams of an airy flat in the country where she and her young daughter can flourish without his manipulation. To obtain this flat, she becomes the night caregiver for an elderly woman, Florence, with Lewy Body dementia in her upscale home.

Flo was once scholar of the occult when she was more cognizant. However, her home and collections were left to ruin after Flo lost her daughter in the 70s. She also has a missing husband, a prodigal son, and an ancient pond in her garden that was once a site of religious significance in antiquity. Flo is a complete bitch to her caregivers, biting and smacking Jess with impunity, but Jess keeps trying to improve her life and house, providing some much needed support to the old woman. Did I mention the old woman really loves Jess’s daughter, can slip out of any restraint, and she can float? Yeah, it’s that kind of shitty job.

Nevill framed this as a screenplay in an effort to branch out, and the story benefits from that. Characters are sharp, the writing is clean, and there’s enough of a backstory that anyone watching this movie would be satisfied. Those extra eyes and opinions with a final goal of filming this makes it a tighter story. Tony is a villain that made me feel terror for Jess, because I’ve dated the guys who used the threat of violence, all the while seeming ever so reasonable if not a bit persistent, to get his way. From reading the author’s notes Some Will Not Sleep, I also see the repeating themes of the elderly just utterly fucking on everyone else, as well as poverty as a factor in the kind of desperation that keeps a person tied to those situations even when that fucking on is paranormal bloodbath.

All the Fiends of Hell: 3.0

Karl wakes up from the flu only to find out the world ended while he was down. In fact, the only people who weren’t sucked into the sky in some sort of inversion of holy Rapture are those who were too sick or physically incapable of exiting their homes on the night of the bells. During his wanderings, he discovers there are creatures who feed on the red light coming from “ships” hovering in the sky, creatures that are dealing with the survivors of that initial night by tearing them apart. He also comes across two kids, a teenager and his young sister, that he chooses to take under his wing. Unfortunately, he meets a real asshole of a dude who claims to be military and everything else under the sun— one of those real treasures of a person who knows nothing and bullies everyone. 

That guy kidnaps ones of the kids, sending Karl and the teenager on a quest to find the man while the whole of the UK is slowly being overwhelmed by the red light, a type of force that makes the invading aliens more powerful, graceful, and brutal to those they get their claws on. The only clue they have is that the sea may be safe, so they slowly make their way there while avoiding monsters.

I didn’t like how often the narrative fell back to “we found safe place, but 20 minutes later fuckkkk…” It repeats itself so often that it loses its power. However, I like that this is one of those stories where the lack of context is built into the narrative. If I woke up tomorrow from the flu and the world was being consumed by an alien force— no matter where they came from— I wouldn’t know anything but the obvious either. I could suppose they were from space or another dimension, but all I would know is what I directly observed. The only history that exists is from that moment waking up for any of the characters. We learn as the characters learn what happened and what is happening to their world.

If I could apply that logic to things like Black Mag or the things beneath the earth The Reddening, I’d probably like Nevill’s novels more, but existence over time = history. If the characters in this book or their great grandchildren or whoever still has no point of reference in 50-100 years, I’d have the same complaint.