Following his decorated first novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter again takes his reader into a weird and magical world with Lanny. Similarly short, lyric and mysterious, this touching story is partner but not sequel.
Lanny's mum and dad have moved to a village not far from London, "fewer than fifty redbrick cottages, a pub, a church." Lanny's dad commutes into the city while his mum works on writing her murder thriller. Lanny goes to school and plays in the woods, singing, fairy-like and joyful; he is "young and ancient all at once, a mirror and a key," "stinking of pine trees and other nice things." He "says strange and wonderful things, mumblings, puzzling things for a child to say." There is also an old man in the village named Pete, an artist who works with natural materials and was once famous in London. He describes himself as a "miserable solitary bastard" but is actually caring and sensitive; he becomes the closest friend Lanny's family has in town.
And then there is Dead Papa Toothwort, a legend and an enigma, tied up in trees and leaves and related to the green men carved in old churches in this part of the world. When the book opens, he is waking "from his standing nap an acre wide." As a force, it is unclear whether Dead Papa Toothwort is good or evil; he is associated with death as well as seasonal renewal. "He wants to kill things, so he sings... his grin takes a sticky hour." "He loves it when a lamb gets stuck being born." And he is obsessed with Lanny.
The whole village, in a way, revolves around Lanny--especially after misfortune strikes. His dad feels overwhelmed by his son's specialness ("What or who is supposed to manage and regulate Lanny and his gifts? Oh f*ck, it's us"); his needs are simpler, related to work, food and sex. The boy's mum is closer to Lanny's dreamworld, "the type of person who is that little bit more akin to the weather than most." After agreeing to give him art lessons, Pete finds a surprising new friend in the young boy. The rest of the human population follows this preoccupation--and always there is Dead Papa Toothwort, listening.
What begins as a sweet revolution of three adult lives (mum, dad, Pete) around the boy turns sinister in the novel's second of three parts; resolution comes in the third. Often a stream-of-consciousness style leaves the reader a bit off-kilter, but this is suited to Lanny's dreamlike setting: trust in the story will be rewarded. Porter's prose is undeniably gorgeous. "Mile-wide slabs of rain romp across the valley... palette-knife smears of bad weather rush past." These elements in combination are every bit as imaginative, compelling and magical as Lanny himself. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia
Shelf Talker: This novel about family, the power of the woods and the creative spirit, centered on a special young boy, will charm any reader.