Title - The Boy Who Drew Monsters
Author - Keith Donohue
Source - Net Galley
Summary -
Three years ago Jack Peter Keenan and his friend Nick nearly drowned in the ocean by his home. Since then Jack Peter, called Jip by his father, has never been the same. Jip was already diagnosed with Aspergers, but after the incident he became even more withdrawn and anti-social. He hated to be touched and if startled would lash out, even blackening his mother's eye. His was a high functioning disease, but for his mother and father, dealing with Jack Peter was destroying them. But what they didn't know was that the world Jip retreated to in his mind was even more terrifying to him than the world on the outside.
"...The boy was not sure if it was a house in which dreams came true or if the house itself had been made our of dreams. Once upon a time, the name had made him happy, but on ice cold nights like these, the dreams turned into nightmares, and monsters under the bed stirred in the bump of the night..."
Jack Peter finds an outlet for the world trapped within his mind. He draws and he draws all the time. He draws everything he thinks of, only lately he thinks of monsters. Creatures that rise out of the sea and great massive dogs. He listens to the conversations around him and from there he draws, turning comments and thoughts into nightmares. But once they are on paper, the scenes begin to come to life. And out on the shore his father sees a shambling form of a man, a creature that wanders nude in the freezing snow. Lately, he can even hear something moving inside the house at night. Something that leaves the floor cold and the doors like ice.
Jack Peter knows what the thing is and he knows its real. He draws it to keep it away and he draws other things to keep them near. The line between the world's reality and Jip's mind has cracked and soon all the monsters will begin to flood in.
Review -
Keith Donohue writes creepy stories. Not the bloody slasher type, but the old black and white Twilight Zone kind that sort of cause the hairs on the back of your neck to stand. It is the old instincts within us. The one that says there is something darker and far more evil nearby. A predator. A sense that for a moment, the story could be more real than we want it to be.
Little Jack Peter is not a likable kid. The difficulty his parents have in managing him is well written. Though you know it's because of the Autism, still you find it difficult to imagine having to work that hard just to communicate with your child. Slowly, Donohue unravels the secrets behind this family and you begin to understand that in some way they have laid all their troubles at the feet of the child. Blaming him for all that is wrong in their lives and their marriage. For Jack Peter's part, he is just trapped in his world with his monsters.
Donohue builds the suspense slowly, taking his time to develop the characters and the story until midway through you are re-examining your feelings about each individual one. The secrets unfold and there is something of a sense of retribution forthcoming in the appearance of Jack Peter's nightmares. These monsters are not only here to terrorize but perhaps to also take some recompense for the wrongs of the past.
In the end, the power of Jack Peter's drawings goes far beyond the creatures he calls forth. In the end, Jack Peter is drawing for their very lives.
A good read.
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