Dark, disturbing rite of passage (The Tooth Fairy - Graham Joyce)

Member Name: TeeCee

Product:	The Tooth Fairy - Graham Joyce
Date:	07/05/01 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dark, Evocative, Superbly written

Disadvantages: Possibly too dark for some

Despite critical acclaim, award-winning author Graham Joyce has never received the recognition he deserves. Perhaps this is because his books are difficult to categorise; they sit somewhere in between the literary mainstream and the less fashionable fantasy genre. Or perhaps it's because his work is often so dark and disturbing.

The Tooth Fairy has a quietly horrific opening that is typical of Joyce. During a balmy summer picnic a young boy has two of his toes bitten off by a pike. The dry, understated manner of the telling makes this scene more horrible than a bucket of gore would ever have been. This incident doesn't have much to do with the plot, however it does set the atmosphere and becomes a recurring symbol of the dangers laying beneath the apparently calm waters.

The novel is set in early 1960s Coventry, a grey and depressing world that anyone would want to escape from. Sam is a young boy going through a less than wonderful childhood. One night he wakes up to see a strange creature in his bedroom - the Tooth Fairy. This Fairy is not the happy, smiling, cute creature of dreams. It is a twisted and bitter denizen of nightmare and it is most unhappy at having been seen.

Sam and the Tooth Fairy are now inextricably linked. Neither can get rid of the other, even when they want to. As Sam grows, the Fairy reappears to him at various times and in various guises - its own nature and sexuality changing along with Sam's. The Fairy is Sam's companion, supporter and confidante; it is his enemy, his tempter and taunt. As he grows in to adolescence the Fairy at times supportively holds his hand, at times shoves him cruelly in to the cesspit. The Fairy is a character in its own right with its own moods and emotions, a jealous friend capable of love and spite in equal measure. As Sam matures, so does the Fairy. Its influence becomes stronger - for good or ill.

As you'd expect with a story about young men the book re
eks of sex. Nothing prurient, little explicit, but almost always there, motivating everything and colouring all views. Fear, lust, jealousy, betrayal - it's all here. The one thing that's almost totally absent is love.

This novel encapsulates a truth that is often overlooked: whilst childhood might be the "Wonder Years", adolescence - certainly for boys - is sheer hell. Joyce lays bare an ordeal that all men experience yet few choose to discuss.

Is the Tooth Fairy "real"? Or is it simply a figment of Sam's imagination, a sophisticated "imaginary friend"? At the end you still don't know and it really doesn't matter. The Fairy was real for Sam and that's all that counts.

How else can you define reality?

Summary: