Staff review by Chris Saliba
Richard Brautigan is best known for this novels Trout Fishing in America and In Watermelon Sugar. Born in Tacoma, Washington in 1935, he eventually moved to San Francisco and became a part of the counter culture scene. Afflicted with alcoholism and mental health issues, he took his life at the age of forty-nine. During his short life he published many volumes of poetry and ten novels.
The year is 1902. Two killers for hire, Cameron and Greer, are procured by Magic Child, a fifteen year old Indian girl. She takes them to Oregon, to the house of Miss Hawkline. Upon meeting Miss Hawkline – a strangely tall, slender woman with long black hair – both men start to realise that Magic Child looks remarkably like Miss Hawkline. In fact, it turns out both women are twins. The young woman they knew as Magic Child, and who they thought was Indian, quickly becomes indistinguishable from her twin. The gunmen can no longer figure out who is Magic Child, or even if exists anymore.
The reason the men have been brought to this house, they learn, is to kill a dreaded monster living in the “ice caves” below the house. The monster has been accidently created by “the Chemicals”, a science experiment that the Hawkline sisters' father had been working on. They believe the monster has killed their father.
As the story progresses, it becomes clear that the monster, a mischievous and often comic character in his own right, has been messing with everyone's minds and creating havoc. The only answer is to kill the monster and then perhaps some sanity can be restored. But how to kill a monster created by a jar of unusual chemicals?
The plot sounds mad, ridiculous and completely unfathomable. Yes, it's all that. So many surreal and bizarre things happen, with the tone changing from the eerily mysterious to the outright comic, that the reader doesn't know what to think. And yet for all that the story holds its own internal logic and when the end comes, it all feels like an exhilarating if totally weird ride. It's hard to figure out what The Hawkline Monster is really about and perhaps it's best not to try! One thing can't be doubted: it's the work of a consummate original and is unforgettable.
The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western, by Richard Brautigan. Published by Canongate. ISBN: 9781786890429 RRP: $19.99
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