the ocean at the end of the lane book cover

n The Ocean at the End of the Lane, summons up childhood magic and adventure while acknowledging their irrevocable loss, and he stitches the elegiac contradictions together so tightly that you won’t see the seams.” - Star Tribune (Minneapolis) on The Ocean at the End of the Lane Gaiman is a master of creating worlds just a step to the left of our own.” - USA Today on The Ocean at the End of the Lane a fairy tale for adults that explores both innocence lost and the enthusiasm for seeing what’s past one’s proverbial fence. You just might need to sleep with the lights on after reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane.“orthy of a sleepless night. Packed with twists and surprises, this is fantasy-cum-horror par excellence.

Your blood will run cold when he runs away from his house at night.Īnd, all the while, you’ll wonder what mysterious episodes from your childhood are lurking in the corners of your memory. Your skin will crawl when he feels the monster inside his body. Your heart will go out to this friendless boy who is neglected by his parents. The protagonist reacts to extraordinary events with utter nonchalance, allowing the real and the unbelievable to fuse so effortlessly.Īt first, he is just a sad ordinary boy whose birthday party no one attended – next, he’s meeting three queer women from another time, one of whom he accompanies to get rid of the monster – and then (every Hollywood scriptwriter’s favourite), the boy’s new nanny bears an uncanny resemblance to the monster.īut it’s not all bad guys and unlikely heroes – it is about the helplessness, naiveté and insatiable curiosity of childhood. The anticipation is torture and brilliantly constructed. Yet, you’ll have this niggling feeling that something very bad is going to happen very soon. The protagonist is going about his life as usual and as he believes that it’s all over, you almost will too. There are about 30 pages in the first half of the book where, just after the monster has been encountered, nothing happens. What Neil Gaiman does most skillfully in this book is, build suspense. The story is narrated as a flashback as our anonymous hero visits his childhood house and memories of bizarre events long forgotten come flooding back to him. These are just a few of the elements in The Ocean at the End of the Lane, each one more outrageous than the next, exactly how a fantasy story should be. A little boy. An unnamed monster. Birds from an unnamed realm which feed on said unnamed monster. A woman so old that she witnessed the Big Bang. A girl who has been 11 years old for an uncertain period of time. A pond that is an ocean.

The ocean at the end of the lane book cover