Once Was Willem

M.R. Carey

There was some real serendipity involved with this one! I finished a book last Thursday, and two I’m interested in are streeting tomorrow. That meant I needed something not too long to read. I went to the TBR pile and looked for the skinniest tome I could find, and it was Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t even remember why I had purchased it.

 

I ended up reading over a hundred pages in the first sitting, and practically inhaled the rest over the next few days. It’s sort of a hard one to describe. It’s a relatively historically accurate story set in England in the 1100s. It’s also part dark fable, horror story, and found family tale. Willem is a perfectly happy and well-loved twelve-year-old who dies suddenly of a fever. His parents are desperate and turn to a mysterious magician to bring him back. He succeeds, sort of, but the Willem that comes back is a monstrous version of the boy who is soon shunned from his village.

 

Willem discovers he’s not the only monster in the world. He meets new and fantastical friends in the mountains he’s settled in and starts to build a new and contented life. Meanwhile, the magician who raised him from the grave has been up to no good, and soon the villagers who drove him from his home are seeking him out to save their children from a horrific fate. Despite his misgivings, Willem rallies his magical friends and sets out to save his former playmates and cousins.

 

The writing in this one is simply beautiful. There’s a lot of period-specific language, and I’ll admit I hit the dictionary more than once. It is lyrical and adds a great deal to the experience, without affecting the flow of the story. Sometimes the story feels like a fairy tale, other times a horror story, and finally like a proto-superhero team-up. It’s hard to see how a sequel would happen, but I’d be first in line to read it.

 

I’m thrilled I stumbled into this one. Five outta five, and one of the best reads of the year so far.