Charles Lambert (1)

Morgan lives alone but for a small staff in the large house where he grew up. One day a child appears, and he and the housekeeper, Engel, take her in. More children appear and they take them all in, though it's unclear where the children are coming from or why they have arrived. The world outside the wall around the estate is dangerous, but less so than it used to be; eventually, Morgan and his friend Doctor Crane and a few of the children venture out, to visit the factory that Morgan's show more sister Rebecca runs. The factory produces power, but Morgan does not know what kind or by what means. The answers are otherworldly and horrifying; their visit becomes a battle, after which they return home, victorious but shocked. The children, their task complete, melt away, and Morgan and the Doctor are left to ponder the events and their purpose. Crane's theory - that the children came out of thin air to accomplish a task even they didn't know the precise nature of, much like in children's books where people travel from one world or time to another - is more of a resolution than most horror novels have.

As horror novels go, this is a gentle one. Morgan's house reminded me a bit of the house in Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and there were some eerie discoveries in the house, including human models made of wax. The story behind Morgan's disfigurement is dark (but not supernatural), revealed to Doctor Crane all at once. The explanation for the children's identity - David finds their story in an old magazine, a story about a Children's Home and the children that were taken away and gassed or shot - and Doctor Crane's theory dovetail together to make a satisfying conclusion.

Quotes

He would never forgive them for assuming that he would wish to live, for assuming that all life, of any kind, was to be preferred to death. (28)

[Morgan would wonder] what the world that had formed itself around him might want from him. Because that was where its meaning, and by extension his, would finally lie; in the demands it made on him. (96-97)

He understood himself as power. The body is a weapon, he thought, in the right hands. (112)

Where are [the children] from? he thought, for the thousandth time. Who are they? What do they want from me? (130)

"Where are you from?" said Morgan.
"I'm from where we were taken," said David. "We all are." (138)

Everything became inevitable with time. (140)

You can't grow into a a face that was never yours, he thought. He thought of his own face as the mask and the mask as the true face that lay beneath it. (159)

"What's happened to you is you, you can't change that....Sometimes you have to give up the easy thing and do the right one." (David to Morgan, 201-202) show less

Christopher Moore should write a gay James Bond. Or maybe I should. Film rights would be snapped up in a jiffy. Stick around, kids, I’m tossing out million-dollar ideas like condoms at a Pride Parade. Charles Lambert’s new novel Any Human Face is being called in the U.K. press a thriller “set on the seamier fringe of Rome’s gay scene.” However, if you come to Any Human Face expecting The Bourne Gay-Identity, you’ll be disappointed. If you come looking for weighty, believable show more human drama set within multi-layered political intrigue, then you’ve turned the right page.

I think that the Guardian’s description of the setting as “the seamier fringe of Rome’s gay scene” is a bit o’ backhanded homophobia. Yes, there is a character who shoots some “pornographic” photography and probably video, too, but he’s rather a Mother Hen type who takes care of any stray (gay or bird) off the street. He’s more on the noble side than the seamy side, and the main relationships in the story are quite sensitive, not sleazy. All the sleaze (murders) are political and unrelated to sexual identity. Yes, there are some graphic sexual moments but only to reflect what occurs in real relationships. I mean, like…you’ve done it, right, squire?

I would describe this novel rather as a thoughtful character study of a quirky gay bookstore owner and sometime art/antiquity dealer named Andrew in Rome who stumbles into a political vipers nest involving high-level politicians and Vatican officials doing very bad things. At its core, the story is about Andrew’s struggle to overcome heartbreak from his past and learn to love again. This book being a literary work and not a hack best-seller, Lambert manages to integrate some thoughtful commentary on writing, art, and photography as well by having the main character try to set up an art show in his bookstore. Lambert creates an interesting juxtaposition between theory/critique and reality through this art show. The co-curator of the show expresses a complex gibberish of analysis to explain how the photographs in the exhibit are “Art.” When the reality is that one of the photographs reveals an actual crime being committed; it’s a performative photograph, if you will, that is FUCKING EVIDENCE OF A (crime i will not identify so as not to spoil it but you can probably guess). So…ehem..fuck your critique. Of course, Lambert isn’t anti-intellectual, but he certainly shows how literary and art theory can tie itself up in a knot of incestuous bullcrap.

Just as in his short stories, Lambert doesn’t grandstand as a writer, rather he creates a compelling reality and allows the characters to express themselves naturally. I found Andrew to be absolutely convincing as a real human being. Although the book is not as fast paced as you might expect a thriller to be, when Andrew was in actual physical danger in the story, my heart was racing, and I couldn’t put the book down.

Any Human Face has quite a few interesting characters, including the Mother Hen character I mentioned before who dresses like a “tribal queen or brothel keeper” in swathes of flowery curtain-pajamas. And the bitchiest rich hag of an art-gallery maven you’ll ever come across. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel as a taste of Rome and the inner life and struggles of Andrew to make a life for himself despite his fears of aging, of failing, and more than anything else, of being lonely. show less

This was my first book of 2016, and Lambert's novel was the perfect book to kick off this year. It clocks in at about 200 pages--210--so it's quite a quick, short novel. In spite of its brevity, it packed so much into its tiny size.

I really liked this book for a few straightforward reasons, first being the Gothic foundation Lambert builds with this simple story. I definitely understand why other people compare it to Edward Gory and Neil Gaiman--and I LOVE Edward Gory, so that was a major show more draw for me--I'd also compare it to Daphne du Maurier and Edgar Allan Poe for the classic way in which Lambert crafts mystery and suspense, and how pervasive it is through the events protagonist, Morgan Fletcher, encounters. Lambert's prose is so well done and crafty that I physically felt the suspense build up in me as I approached the ending. I felt a need to know what the answer was to the children's appearance and Morgan's past tragedy. The suspense was so The Shining-like, it was thrilling.

A lot of readers seemed to have problems with Lambert's pacing in the novel. In fact, I think the pacing is another reason this book was so artful. Everything unfolds in a timely manner, just before boiling point. Morgan really is a marginal figure, in life and as such a figure. The world outside his manor is supposedly scary and unfit for him, so he remains on the outside of all that, remains in his estate. It's fitting that he would be completely clueless and without answers. The way Lambert structures the tale highlights this. I love when form mirrors content, and when the reader fills the same role as the protagonist. I felt like as the reader you become a part of the narrative, so our urgency in finding answers mirrors Morgan's desire, and when the story doesn't want to give us those answers, we have to be told. I loved this aspect of the novel. That aside, the images, the atmosphere, the mood and world within the novel is just beautifully, beautifully, and amazingly vivid. I really felt for Morgan; the tension, the emotions were real, and I had no problems throwing myself into the descriptions.

I also LOVED that this book doesn't spell everything out for readers. Everything is left up to your interpretation and I WISH MORE BOOKS DID THIS! I find readers have to have everything tied up in a pretty box, complete with bow, because it's comfortable, and they become unsettled when they have to rely only on conjecture and hypothesis. I like that this story wasn't comfortable--it was damn well unsettling and it was fantastic. I have my theory on what the answer is to the mystery; I have my theory on who the children were and what happened--and I'm OKAY WITH THAT. That's art. There is no answer sometimes. This is one of the major reasons I loved this book. It allowed me to have my opinion.

Overall, this book was well-written, tantalizing Gothic fiction, and was suspenseful, fun, and wasn't tied up in a nice bow at the end. It was refreshing and just. so. GOOD. Go read it now. Drop what you're doing and live for 210 pages.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review, which does not influence my opinions.
This review originally appeared on my website: The Literarium show less

The story was relatively well-written and very successful at keeping the intrigue up throughout the whole narrative, making the reader more and more pumped for an ending that would blow our collective minds. but the sad truth is that it just didn't. the end was far too vague to balance out the fascinating oddities of the rest of the narrative and left most readers going, "wait... what just happened?" as they finished the tale. I had much more hope for the book than its ending provided, show more leaving it deeply unresolved in my mind. show less