The Ocean at the End of the Lane

About the book

When a middle-aged man returns to his childhood home for a funeral, he wanders to the neighboring farmhouse where he met Lettie Hempstock decades earlier. This visit triggers long-suppressed memories of a suicide on the property that invited a parasitic, otherworldly entity into his life. The entity, disguised as a nanny named Ursula Monkton, manipulated his family while Lettie and her grandmother used ancient folk magic to contain the threat. The narrative follows the seven-year-old boy as he navigates a landscape where a farm pond functions as a vast ocean and logic yields to the demands of supernatural boundaries.

This book is for readers interested in the mechanics of memory and the specific fears of childhood. It appeals to those who enjoy dark fantasy where cosmic horror intersects with domestic life. Readers finish the book with a perspective on how adults filter past traumas through a lens of mundane reality. It provides a look at how childhood experiences remain static in the mind even as the person changes, leaving the reader to decide which parts of the protagonist's history were literal and which were shaped by a child’s imagination.

Details

Published

2013

Publisher

William Morrow Books

ISBN

9780062255655

Language

EN