Thursday, August 19, 2021

The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel

From the outset, The Ocean at the End of the Lane reads like a memoir. The author appears to be recalling events from his childhood. There seem to be some traumatic events that occur, including bad babysitters. Then things start to get weird. The babysitter starts to exhibit Roald Dahl level of meanness. She also has a knack for intuiting any attempt to escape and to top it off has an affair with the Dad. Then it turns out that she is not just a mean person, but a demonic being. Luckily, the new person down the street has good mystical abilities. They narrator is able to be saved and go on to live a normal life. 

In the afterward, the author makes it clear that while the character of the narrator is based on his own life, everyone else is made up. Though the story is told from the background of an adult recollecting the past, there is a distinct child's perspective. The adult world is very different than the child's world.

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