This book was tagged by multiple people as a HORROR book. I did not find it to be such. I can see some elements of horror with the supernatural climax, but through the majority of the book, it could easily have been any other story of loss, family and love. I found this title on the Tournament of Book’s longlist this year. There were quite a number of interesting titles found there and this was no exception.
I adored the story of Apollo. From his early entrepreneurial escapades, to his love of hunting books, to his self-confident mantra right through to his full accepting his role as husband and father. The hunt for his son took so much of the passion he had cultivated in earlier parts of his life and the challenges he faced were like nothing he had ever known. Who could have known there were so many eerie things in New York?
While I did not love the magical, otherworldly aspects of this father’s search for his missing son, I did find the emotional path to ring true. This was a cleverly written love story and one man’s understanding of the life-changing power of parenthood.
Book Summary:
One man’s thrilling journey through an enchanted world to find his wife, who has disappeared after seemingly committing an unforgiveable act of violence, from the award-winning author of the The Devil in Silver and Big Machine.
Apollo Kagwa has had strange dreams that have haunted him since childhood. An antiquarian book dealer with a business called Improbabilia, he is just beginning to settle into his new life as a committed and involved father, unlike his own father who abandoned him, when his wife Emma begins acting strange. Disconnected and uninterested in their new baby boy, Emma at first seems to be exhibiting all the signs of post-partum depression, but it quickly becomes clear that her troubles go far beyond that. Before Apollo can do anything to help, Emma commits a horrific act—beyond any parent’s comprehension—and vanishes, seemingly into thin air.
Thus begins Apollo’s odyssey through a world he only thought he understood to find a wife and child who are nothing like he’d imagined. His quest begins when he meets a mysterious stranger who claims to have information about Emma’s whereabouts. Apollo then begins a journey that takes him to a forgotten island in the East River of New York City, a graveyard full of secrets, a forest in Queens where immigrant legends still live, and finally back to a place he thought he had lost forever. This dizzying tale is ultimately a story about family and the unfathomable secrets of the people we love. (from GoodReads book page).
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