A Monster Calls

Siobhan Dowd only started writing books towards the end of her life. A Swift Pure Cry came out in 2006. It’s a compassionate story of teen pregnancy. The London Eye Mystery was a hit of 2007. She died of cancer in that same year with two more novels written and the beginnings of a third. Bog Child, which is my favourite, won the Carnegie Medal. Solace of the Road came out in 2009.

The notes for the third were handed over to Patrick Ness. He was given the job of forming a story from them. The book he has written will be out next year. I like the title, a lot.



Siobhan Dowd’s battle with cancer seems to have arisen in the story of A Monster Calls. From the blurb:

The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. But it isn’t the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming... The monster in his back garden, though, this monster is something different. Something ancient, something wild.

Patrick Ness has been getting loads of fans for his Chaos Walking trilogy. Read his hard-driven, violent, stories and Ness might seem a strange choice to handle any project begun by the more restrained, contemplative, Dowd. But then, wonderful things can result when contrasting favours are mixed.