 Ambitious and thoughtful literary horror weighed down by excess baggage  I approached Stephen Chbosky’s second novel, Imaginary Friend, with ears pricked for several good reasons. Firstly, this was his first novel in twenty years, a very long time since The Perks of a Wallflower which was given a new lease of life by the 2012 film which was also directed by Chbosky. That film featured Emma Watson in an early post-Harry Potter role, and she returns the favour with a major headline cover quote: “Astonishing… Genius… A Masterpiece…” but, hey, I doubt her humble opinion will hold much sway with genre readers. I was also aware that he wrote Jericho, a post-nuclear thriller which lasted for two seasons between 2006-7 which I recall as entertaining television. Continuing to build an impressive CV, Chbosky then directed the smash hit Wonder based on an excellent kid’s book about a boy with a terrible facial deformity. So, Stephen Chbosky is obviously well-known in Hollywood, but let us be frank, he is a nobody in the horror world. With that in mind, I’m curious whom the novel, which has been picking up decent reviews in the mainstream press, will be pitched at. So, I approached Imaginary Friends with considerable interest…. I did enjoy this beast of a book but it was seriously let down by its 700 page length, maybe the editor was afraid to pull a big Hollywood name to task, but Imaginary Friends was way too flabby and if 200 pages were culled it might have been something special. On one level it could pass for one of Stephen King’s more bloated offerings, but if streamlined through the Jonathan Maberry playbook, I’m thinking of the superb Glimpse which has absolutely no flab whatsoever, it would have been a much stronger. I use that comparison as some dream elements are reminiscent of Glimpse. There is a great novel hidden within these 700-pages, but many readers will not have the patience to persevere and will be put off by its girth. I will also be interested to see how much interest it does pick up within the horror community; it certainly sits at the literary end of the market so might attract a non-traditional horror readership also. The story opens with single mother Kate Reese arriving at a small Pennsylvanian town with her young son Christopher, who dominates the book and is a little boy you’ll want to get behind. She has no job and cash is in short supply, Kate is also escaping an abusive relationship from a man who in the past has tracked her down. However, the town of Mill Grove gives Kate a positive vibe and she soon lands a job in an old folk’s home. Kate has high hopes for her son, but he constantly under-performs at school and finds himself in the remedial classes, feeling he has let his mum down. Much of the early parts of the story involve Christopher and his tough time at school, he obviously has a special need which goes surprisingly undiagnosed. However, he is an observant little boy and realises his mother is struggling and soon he is being bullied at school for the poor quality of his clothes. These elements of the story were skilfully handled, and you’ll cheer up when Christopher makes friends with a bunch of other likable misfits, but at times you could be forgiven for forgetting you were reading a horror novel. After a while Christopher vanishes and reappears after six days, having no recollection of where he was. When quizzed by the police he repeatedly refers to ‘the nice man’ who may be a figment of his imagination, or some type of supernatural entity. Much of the success of Imaginary Friend depends upon the plot shrouding the true intentions of ‘the nice man’ and the ripple of supernatural developments which follow him. Although it is written in the third person and there are many other characters it is most definitely Christopher’s story and as he is only six years old is a very trusting soul. The story picks up pace upon Christopher’s return, not only does he have a soothing voice in his head, he also seems to be more intelligent. Many of these sequences were very nicely put together, before long Christopher has moved from remedial books to Robert Louis Stevenson and the teacher believes he has been cheating in his maths tests. Even weirder, he has a much greater awareness of the lives of the people around him and can pick up subtle nuances on, for example, a teacher drinking too much. However, eventually it does begin to drag, and the end takes way too long to arrive, with a build-up which becomes repetitive because of the way in which it is stretched out. Ultimately, it spends too much time moving backwards and forwards from the dream/nightmare to our world, instigated by Christopher building a weird tree house in the woods. The novel featured many other characters which the author takes time developing as they all have loose connection to Christopher. My favourite was the good Catholic girl Mary Katherine, who discovers the boy after his spell missing and feels guilty about just about everything, from fooling around with her boyfriend to driving too fast and is soon sucked into the main plot in another fascinating way. Fascinating as some of this was, it added much to the length of the book. It does not take a brain surgeon to realise ‘the nice man’ is not what he seems, but the connections to the ’50 years before’ which opened the story was nicely handled and the retribution which comes with it. Imaginary Friend had some outstanding scenes and I will be interested to see how others interpret the ending. On one hand it might irritate some, on the other it could be read as a reinforcement of faith and there is nothing wrong with that. Certainly, it has a dollop of ambiguity, but I thought it worked well. This is a very ambitious book, but there is not enough plot to spread over 700 pages without it repeating itself. I took a break from it on two separate occasions, reading much shorter works, so it could retain some freshness and not develop into a slog. 4/5 Tony Jones    Comments are closed.
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