When I first read the draft of Spiderbones in 2007, I wrote:
“Exceptional is the way in which the writer has established mood and setting, largely through the use of the main characters’ dialogues and the location references. The story is grim, dark, gritty, unrelenting. This is one of the great strengths of the book—its atmosphere. The reader is keenly aware at all times of the world in which the author requires us to inhabit: a tough, uneasy landscape, both physically and psychologically. The characters are equally tough, rendered perfectly through their dialogue and their actions. And the town of Castle Dawn becomes not just a backdrop for the action but, eerily, a living presence as well, quite nearly a character in its own right."
I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Jeff a few years back, and I was stunned by the raw poetry of this first novel. Evocative, haunting imagery, descriptions, strong dialogue that captures the world of his young characters—we are drawn into their lives, and into the haunted mind of his protagonist, Peter, who struggles to make sense of what he sees. Visions? Hallucinations? Madness?
Here’s a passage from the novel:
There was no witness when the bat nailed the back of his head. He curled into a ball to protect himself, tossing his arms in front of his face. He saw his left arm block the wallop meant for his nose. It didn’t creak or snap. Instead, his veins filled with blistering water, heat that allowed his bones to twist as if it were jelly fitting a mould, until a bat-shaped groove was pounded into the limb.
The pain could only be described by a hallucination. Blinking, he saw a giant spider, the size of a van. She trailed a strand of rope-like material behind her as stepped away from his arm. He stared at the odd mix of grey and white leaking from her spinneret; her web was neither as shiny nor as thin as silk. Perhaps an inch thick, it proved to be easily categorized.
She was secreting bones that were digging into his arm, yoking his skeleton to her web. Unable to escape, he noticed a throbbing sac just above his arm. The silky package burst open before he screamed, unleashing dozens of hungry arachnids. The baby spiders covered his limb, filling it with stinging venom as they ate it, a thousand tiny bites that destroyed his appendage far more efficiently than a bat.
Blinking again, he watched bone turn to blood and spiders turn to kicking feet. Yet pain remained pain. Returned to the beating, he stayed curled in a ball, pinned not by a web but by his own failing limbs. This observation would do little to save his life. Without a—
“Cop!” yelled someone who couldn’t be older than Peter.
Six pairs of feet dressed in combat boots suddenly pointed their toes away from the man they would’ve killed with three more blows. Unable to remember any of their faces, even the colour of their bandanas, he passed out. He used his last thought to make a guess: without a description, or a police force fast enough to outrun juvenile delinquents, the punks who hurt him would never be caught.
He was right.
Spiderbones is available from Trafford.
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