THE POSSESSION OF MR. CAVE
Matt Haig
Viking Adult
Psychological Suspense
ISBN: 9780670020560
In Matt Haig’s two previous novels for adults, THE DEAD FATHERS CLUB and THE LABRADOR PACT, the author skillfully utilized naïve narrators. In both cases, he successfully allowed the reader to use his or her more sophisticated knowledge to fill in the gaps in understanding left by those telling the stories --- in one case a child, in the other a dog. In THE POSSESSION OF MR. CAVE, his third book for adults, Haig does much the same thing. In this case, however, the narrator is far from innocent. Instead, Haig relies on readers to fill in the gaps of credibility and logic left by the growing instability of a most unreliable narrator.
THE POSSESSION OF MR. CAVE takes the form of a book-length letter written by the title character to his 15-year-old daughter, Bryony (called Petal affectionately), whom he addresses in the second person throughout the novel. The book opens with a bloodcurdling scream, as Terence Cave and Bryony become witness to the accidental death of Bryony’s twin brother Reuben. Reuben, who has always been a troubled boy, afflicted with a large birthmark and plagued by the teasing of other kids his age, has also never been his father’s favorite (as the reader learns gradually during Mr. Cave’s narrative). But when Reuben fatally falls from a light post after attempting a daredevil stunt in front of a group of local boys, Mr. Cave falls into a sort of madness.
Terence Cave is no stranger to death --- his mother died when he was a small boy, and his wife lost her life during a robbery when their children were babies. But in the wake of Reuben’s death, Mr. Cave becomes increasingly obsessed with protecting the one person he still holds dear: Bryony. Bryony is a beautiful girl, though, right on the border of womanhood, and her loveliness has attracted the attention of several neighborhood boys --- namely one, Denny, who was part of the gang goading on Reuben during that fateful night.
Convinced that Denny has designs to hurt Bryony one way or another, desperate not to lose his daughter to a most unsuitable boy, Mr. Cave grows increasingly desperate --- following Bryony to parties and clubs, lurking outside her school or her friends’ houses to catch her in the act of deception, finally locking her in the attic for her own protection. Cave seems determined to freeze Bryony in time --- at the point in her life before Reuben’s death, when she was an innocent, bright, creative girl whose main interest was playing the cello --- and to lock her away the same way he might put one of the antiques in his shop behind glass. Mr. Cave is convinced his increasingly violent mind is being controlled by the unsettled spirit of his dead son, but the real question is who’s possessing whom.
Matt Haig’s previous novels have hardly been light, sunny affairs, but in THE POSSESSION OF MR. CAVE, his writing turns darker than ever. At times, the theme (which plays on the dual meanings of the word “possession”) can seem heavy-handed, but the near-compulsive emphasis on having, holding, keeping and protecting aptly reflects Cave’s troubled state of mind. Haig effectively brings readers into Cave’s unstable interior world, asking them to inhabit this closed-off, deeply unreliable space along with their narrator. Sometimes the intensity of the novel can feel claustrophobic, but the interiority only serves to underscore Haig’s compelling, incessant exploration of a damaged mind slowly consuming itself and everything around it.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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