The Nature of Monsters [ハードカバー]

The year is 1718. Blinded by the excessive passion of first love, Eliza Tally finds herself pregnant at sixteen, her titled young seducer willing to pay to have the fallen girl placed in service to an apothecary in London. A calculating mother cosigns the bargain and Eliza is whisked to the domicile of her employer, Mr. Black, who hides his face under a black veil and performs questionable research to gain the attention of the London Royal Society. This is a desolate place, consisting of Grayson Black's office, the apothecary shop and the living quarters, ruthlessly attended by the severe Mrs. Black and an apothecary's assistant, Edgar Pettigrew. The only other resident is the mentally and physically defective servant, Mary. The nature of Black's experiments cloaked in secrecy, an oppressive gloom pervades every day of Eliza's service, the girl increasingly burdened by the hopelessness of her predicament.

For all his detachment, like some otherworldly Jekyll and Hyde, Black's intentions are unquestionably evil. The house is dark, shadowed, Eliza performing her chores as the baby grows within her, her fears exacerbated in this monstrous place, her only companion the dim-witted, disfigured Mary. Yet Mary is strangely kind, with her clumsy attempts to communicate. There is something unhealthy in this home, the sense of menace growing with the child in her belly. Trapped in a web of confusion, Eliza casts about for a means of escape, her natural instinct to survive her circumstances. As her original antipathy toward Mary morphs slowly into a grudging affection, Eliza realizes that there are more dangers afoot in Black's household, her innate intelligence whispering in her ear, "run".

What are Mr. Black's intentions? What will happen when her baby is born? And how can Eliza escape the grasping aggression of Edgar Pettigrew?

Murky and atmospheric, Clark's London is dingy, dirty and filled with the contradictions of class and circumstance, the future as obscure as the so-called scientific treatise Black pens to rationalize his experiments. There is little cause for hope in Eliza's dank corner of London, save the notice of a French bookseller who offers the promise of a better future. Clark's powerful novel reeks with indefinable menace, the two women victims of conditions they struggle to define, imagination fueled by fear. Black personifies the ultimate victimizer, the unfettered ego of a man fascinated by the very qualities of the women who so baffle him, ascribing his own twisted lusts to what he fails to comprehend, but manipulates for profit. Monsters come in many guises. To scientific pretenders like Black, the marrying of those of low class to his research may bear the promise of a reputation before others of his ilk. To those who endure such overweening pride and unconscionable cruelty, he is the monster. In this acute study of human nature, pride and greed, Clark once again mines the underbelly of London for her treasure: innocence, men and monsters. Luan Gaines/2007.

Ms Clark did such a great job of depicting monsters and monstrous behaviour in this novel that it took me while to find redeeming qualities in any character. Except, of course, for Mary.

Set in early 18th century London, this novel focusses on aspects of life that are really confronting and uncomfortable. In many ways, this is an Hogarthian London - perhaps just around the corner from Gin Lane. It won't appeal to everyone but it should appeal to those who enjoyed Ms Clark's first novel 'The Great Stink'.

We meet both the best and worst of humanity in these pages but underpinning it all is the depiction of London herself.

Highly recommended.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Clare Clark has to be one the bravest contemporary fiction writers around. Two years ago, she debuted with "The Great Stink" and if anyone thinks that was unsavory enough, Clark returns with "The Nature of Monsters," a gothic horror that will test your tolerance of the macabre with some of the coarsest, meanest, creepiest, most menacing people you can find in London of 1718.

This isn't the mannered tea-party London of Pygmalion's Eliza Doolittle. This is the filthy, horrid, revolting London of Eliza Tally. Jilted by a wealthy lover her money-hungry mother had baited, the impoverished and pregnant Eliza is sold to an apothecary, Grayson Black. She expects that Black will terminate the pregnancy in exchange for serving as maid in his household. But Black has other plans--he's a mad scientist whose use for Eliza goes beyond having his boots polished and his meals served.

Black is consumed by a treatise on "maternal impression," theorizing that a pregnant woman's experiences, when taken to extremes while with child, will determine the physiognomy of the infant. A mother who is terrorized will likely produce a deformed child. One who takes a fancy to animals will produce a freak of nature, half human, half beast. Black believes that the hideous port-wine birthmark that disfigured his face was the direct cause of his mother's terror during the Great London Fire of 1666.

The Black household is straight out of a horror flick. Mrs. Black is mean-spirited and just a tad less strange than her husband. Mary, the other maid, is mentally-challenged, with loathsome features and child-like behaviors. The demented and evil Black is a towering figure in black with a veiled hat that covers his marked face, terrorizing Eliza, Mary and tradespeople. The Royal Society does not take his experiments and theories seriously, and as he becomes more obsessed with his writings and addicted to opium, he becomes insanely dangerous, torturing Eliza, hoping she would produce a monster. By the time Eliza discovers the truth behind Black's secret experiments, it might be too late for her to save herself and Mary.

The plot may be fantastic but it's written tightly with intense yet eloquent prose. The story moves quickly, and Clark does not let up on the suspense. It's a ghastly and twisted tale and one almost needs a breath of fresh, cleansing air after having spent many hours on its sinister plot. As gothic horror, "The Nature of Monsters" is a well-written sensational, rich with the dark and creepy elements of the genre, and thankfully, never becomes laughable or absurd.