Hazel's Phantasmagoria

Leander Deeny’s first novel is a kind of gothic fantasy, part melodrama and part farce. There are echoes of Alice in Wonderland about it, and also reminders of T H White. Hazel, aged ten, is taken to stay at her Aunt Eugenia’s mouldering mansion for three weeks while her parents go on holiday. Aunt Eugenia, widowed when her flamboyant but dissolute husband fell into a tiger pit at the zoo, has one strange son, Isambard, who is Hazel’s age. The Aunt proves bullying and tyrannical, treating Hazel with vindictive contempt. Trying to run away, Hazel finds three weird monsters in a nearby wood, whose mission is to terrorise (and, it finally emerges, kill) Aunt Eugenia by acting as her nightmares. Befriending them after early fears, Hazel joins enthusiastically in their vengeful mission, only to draw back when she finally discovers how far they – and their creator, Isambard – are prepared to go.

This is a very strange book. It is well and wittily written, with some original variations on comic melodrama and many good jokes. Much of it is pretty scary, too. But the tone is highly variable, and its emotional range is wide, following a flippant and facetious course into some very dark and questionable areas. A powerful comic imagination has run wild, and strays into places that are far from comic. It is a promising first novel, and some children will love it and re-read it. Others could find it very disturbing.