BOOK REVIEW: HOOKED BY AC WISE
5/8/2022
 For a book I did not expect to take to I found Hooked both moving and compelling, with the tragic figure of James Hook being vividly brought to life and the pantomime villain we are all familiar being nicely side-lined by AC Wise in this stylish and vibrant semi-reimagining of a timeless story. Hooked by A.C. Wise Publisher : Titan Books (12 July 2022) Paperback : 336 pages ISBN-10 : 1789096839 ISBN-13 : 978-1789096835 A Book Review by Tony Jones James Hook is vividly brought to life in a refreshing spin on the Peter Pan story I am the last person you might expect to pick up AC Wise’s Hooked, which develops the Peter Pan mythology from the point of view of the dastardly Captain Hook. On most days I swerve modern-day twists of established classics of yesteryear, but when a review copy arrived unannounced on my doorstep I decided upon an impromptu trip to Neverland. I had never read the JM Barrie original, and my knowledge of Pan and Hook does not extend beyond the classic Disney cartoon and the 1991 Spielberg film Hook, where Dustin Hoffman hammed it up as the pirate. However, you do not need any more detail than this basic knowledge to enjoy and have a full understanding of the rather bleak, but compelling, Hooked. Hooked is also a sequel of sorts to Wendy, Darling (2021) which is set some years after the events of Peter Pan and concerns Pan stealing Wendy Darling’s daughter (Jane) and whisking her to Neverland. As Jane is a major character in Hooked there are plenty of references to what went on in Wendy, Darling, but I did not feel I needed to have read the original to enjoy Wise’s second novel. Wendy is also a character in Hooked and her reflections on her time in Neverland were fascinating, in hindsight realising Pan either used her as a surrogate mother/sister who did all the cooking and cleaning and was not fully allowed to participate in the adventures. Even though the book is principally about James Hook, it does also give a clever feminist perspective with both mother and daughter still struggling to accept their role in Pan’s world Neverland in which the whim of one person was a queer type of dictatorship. Although Peter Pan is barely in Hooked his shadow dominates proceedings and as I have not read the Barrie original I am unsure whether the author ever alluded to a dark side (I doubt it) and this book is all about the darkness. Pan (as James Hook always referred to him) controlled Neverland with an iron fist and was a spiteful nasty child (or demon?) who enjoyed inflicting cruelty and using everybody else in Neverland as pawns in his never-ending battles with the pirate. The characters in the story have not truly recovered from their dealings with Pan, Hook in particular who we first meet in 1939, is still missing a hand and a foot. He disappears into the bottle to forget, but realises redemption might be possible, but only if he returns to the magical land he once escaped vowing never to return. The story is predominately set in London in 1939, with a drunk James Hook coming to believe that a slither of Neverland magic may have filtered into our world after there is a murder. Realising something is amiss, he seeks out Wendy Darling and they immediately recognise each other, Wendy’s daughter Jane enters the fray after her roommate is murdered in the same manner. Jane is studying to be a doctor and struggles is a male dominated profession and is looked down upon by her peers. She also remembers her earlier run in with Pan from the previous novel, in which the boy mistook her for her mother. What happens next takes the three closer to Neverland and a reconciliation with what went before and the darkness which surrounds it. Hooked was a literary and melancholic character driven fantasy read which explores themes of grief, survivor’s guilt and the struggle to leave the past behind. James Hook’s pain pours all over the pages and whilst the standard caricature is of a pirate who is forced to walk his own plank, this book goes considerably deeper and vividly portrays a man caught within a never-ending trap. What might it be like to be murdered millions of times (and brought back to life) by Pan only to be killed again with a vague sense of déjà vu of having been there before? It is made clear that even though Pan and Hook fought for an eternity, the pirate never as much as scratched the boy. For him it was like playing a rigged computer game which was impossible to win. Interestingly, there is also a subtle developing LGBTQ+ storyline with this character, which is strongly connected to his overwhelming pain. The story convincingly flips back in time, picking up both Darling women and Hook around the period he escaped through a hole in the sky (more computer game similarities?) The recreation of Neverland was also beautifully drawn, however, returning as adults the group see the place in a much more sinister and unsettling light. On another level Hooked examines the masculinity of the original story and although it never exactly says what Pan is, he is far from the free magical presence in the Barrie original. For a book I did not expect to take to I found Hooked both moving and compelling, with the tragic figure of James Hook being vividly brought to life and the pantomime villain we are all familiar being nicely side-lined by AC Wise in this stylish and vibrant semi-reimagining of a timeless story. Tony Jones Hooked |
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