Shy Creatures

Chambers, Clare. Shy Creatures. New York: Mariner. 2024. Print.

First Sentences:

 

In all failed relationships, there is a point that passes unnoticed at the tiume, which can later be identified as the beginning of the declined. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park. 

Description:

The premise of Clare Chambers' Shy Creatures was enough to hook me for good. A mute, shy man with uncut hair and a beard to his waist is discovered in a run-down Victorian house living with a dotty, aged aunt. Nearby neighbors did not know a man was living in this house, never having seen him outside in 20 years. 

William Tapping is admitted to a nearby phychiatric hospital where Helen Hansfor, a thirty-something art therapist, takes a special interest in his case. William talks with no one, but displays a brilliant talent for drawing.

The book gradually unfolds his story, in reverse chronological order, starting with the disturbance that led police to his home and his subsiquent admittance to the hospital, all the way back to his origins that led him to that point. His is a truly fascinating tale, one that is unpredictable, emotional, and powerful from end to start as the pieces of his life story slowly fall into place.

Meanwhile, on a parallel track, the life of Helen also unfolds. She is having a three-year affair with one of the hospital doctors, Gil Rudden, a married man with a family, a giant in the field of psychiatry, and her immediate superior. While they meet secretly, waiting for the day when his children leave their home in a few years, there is conflict on the treatment of the mute recluse, William Tapping, under their care. 

I think that is all you will get out of me. A very gripping story with highly sympathetic and often stubborn characters interplaying throughout the novel right up to its final conclusion. A great, engrossing read.

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Michaelides, Alex. The Silent Patient.    

A woman is found with a shotgun over her dead husband. There is no doubt she has killed him., But during the trial and for the six years she is in a psychiatric hospital, she has not said a word. Why? And can the new doctor get through to her somehow and learn her story? (previously reviewed here) 

 

Happy reading.

Fred

 

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