Mariner Books, 390 pages.
★★★★★
When numerous friends tell you a particular novel is wonderful, the only thing left to do it read it. I’m delighted to report that I too think that Shy Creatures, the latest novel from British writer Clare Chambers, is indeed terrific. Adjectives such as moving and heartwarming spring to mind even though Chambers’ protagonist led what many would consider a sad life.
Shy Creatures opens in 1964, when social workers are dispatched to a fusty, decaying Victorian home. Women’s clothing has been hurled from an upstairs window, but the most shocking thing is that the home is occupied by an unwell elderly woman and a naked man with long hair and an even longer scraggly beard. Louisa Tapping insists he is her nephew, who got angry because she disposed of a dead magpie he had placed in the refrigerator. This may be true, but it can’t be verified because Louisa dies and the man is uncommunicative. He is taken to Westbury Park, a psychiatric facility in Croydon.
Dr. Gil Rudden, the psychiatrist in charge of the strange case. assumes the man is of low intellect and mute. Helen Hansford, the staff art therapist and Gil’s mistress, suspects Gil is wrong. After a shave, a haircut, and some detective work they discover that their new patient is William Tapping, age 37, but they need to find someone who can tell them more. Helen also finds out that William is literate and has a talent for drawing. He depicts birds with precise detail in their feathers. Was this why he was upset when his magpie was trashed? Maybe, but what 37-year-old thinks it’s a good idea to stick it in the fridge?
Chambers takes us back and forth in time and has several narrative threads at work: the mystery of William Tapping, the problematic affair of Gil and Helen, Gil’s ambition, and those out of synch with changing mores. The novel’s ending date (1964) is significant. It’s roughly the time in which the legendary ”Sixties” began. Think Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Carnaby Street, rising hemlines, mod hairstyles, and challenges to authority. But what if you grew up with Sinatra, swing, the Blitz, and post-World War II rebuilding and conformity? And what if, in the case of William, you’ve not been outside of your home since 1938? William’s life was marked by childhood trauma, war (for the UK, World War II began in 1939), and three overly protective aunties who became his custodians when his parents were killed in a car crash.
Most book covers for Shy Creatures sport a badger, a beast that can be fierce but is notoriously timid. Young William (“Billy”) was fascinated by the badgers he saw at the vacation cottage owned by Basil and Marion Kenely, the parents of his school friend Harry. Billy was, indeed, a sensitive, shy boy who was easily bullied, upset by the killing of a mouse, and reluctant to make friends, though he was once lauded for his cricket skills. Helen’s efforts to track down the Kenelys leads to the further revelation that William is not mute, though his boyish voice suggests that his social skills were frozen after his single year of private school. Gil doubts William can ever live on his own.
Gil and Helen are also out of synch with social changes. Gil prescribes too much medication to his patients, understandable given that chlorpromazine was relatively new. Less understandable is his overbearing ego, overactive libido, and sexism. He and his wife have several children with another on the way, but Gil maintains Helen as his mistress and perhaps her niece as well.
If this sounds dire rather than uplifting, rest assured that it’s not. William may be socially ignorant, but he’s totally lovable, indominable, well-read, and talented. As the novel’s major “shy” creature, he is also the character through which other characters come to understand themselves. In good Dickensian style, he even attracts a benefactor.
Among the virtues of Chambers’ novel is that it keeps readers on their toes. She does so through delayed revelations that are consistent with her characters, not the random episodic treatments one finds in too many books these days. Shy Creatures is a charmer from start to finish.
Rob Weir
Footnote: I suspect Chambers snuck in a pun. The Tappings were heirs to a grocery fortune and one of William’s progenitors was named Samsbury. Sainsbury’s is Britain’s second largest grocery chain.
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