Runner Hawk

Leo is bemused – he feels increasingly separated from the world and he is prey to bizarre experiences: a hawk hovers endlessly in the sky, apparently frozen. A runner is similarly and permanently held in mid-stride-and only Leo sees these conundrums.  However, it’s not just the world which seems odd to him, but his own body, too. His limbs spasm or freeze and no-one, not even doctors, can explain why. His childhood memories have vanished from his mind and it is only at someone’s prompting that they return to him. Even then, we – and Leo – are unsure of their authenticity and thus flickers of uncertainty begin to communicate themselves to the reader.

In the midst of these anomalies Leo’s parents go on holiday for two weeks and his eccentric Uncle Toby, a celebrated poet and bon viveur, comes to keep him company – a watchful eye but also a liberated and entertaining one.  He draws Leo out of his bedroom, his sanctuary, and initiates him in the rites of passage which teenagers pass through on their way to adulthood; smoking; drinking; driving; sex. But still Leo is apart from the world with periods where he freezes both physically and emotionally, without knowing why. He is drawn to a girl near his own age whose sister Becca disappeared some years earlier and, to his horrified fascination, he sees not only Becca’s ghost but the place where she met her death.

He realises there is something badly wrong with him and that he is deteriorating and that’s when the reason for Toby’s visit becomes clear. He has come to explain something to Leo which his parents cannot bear to do. Leo died when he was five, drowned in a frozen river after falling through the ice. The Leo who now exists is a clone, manufactured in a laboratory as an experiment and with a limited shelf life. His systems are now failing and he will die very soon, as his callous creator-an immensely wealthy business man for whom his father worked-will do nothing to save him. He is merely an elaborate experiment.

Egan subtly and intelligently sows the seeds of Leo’s reality through the narrative, with Leo as the narrator, to give more immediacy. The ethical and moral implications are similarly woven through the storyline so that his position as an author becomes clear without the need for literary hammer blows. As Leo dies with his family around him Egan skilfully avoids emotional wallowing and instead transports Leo to an existence where he, the frozen hawk and the runner are liberated to move eternally.