Review of 'A Monster Calls' by Patrick Ness
An in-depth analysis of my favourite YA novel.
Award-winning author Patrick Ness has released six YA novels, a screenplay, and various short stories. He began A Monster Calls when the original author, Siobhan Dowd, lost her battle with cancer; lending further poignancy to the story. The novel has won multiple awards, including the Carnegie Medal for authorship, Kate Greenaway Award for illustration, and Children’s Book of the Year in 2011[1], and this success led to its film adaptation in 2016.
A Monster Calls is a tragic account of thirteen-year-old Conor’s inability to cope with his mother’s illness. The novel carries many tropes of YA fiction; the difficult transition from childhood into adolescence, self-discovery and acceptance, and feeling detached from society. For Conor, the latter is a result of his trauma.
As the title suggests, there is a physical monster in Conor’s life; a personified, monstrous yew tree that tells Conor three healing stories. When faced with this monster, a child’s anticipated response would be fear, however Conor simply says: ‘“I’ve seen worse.”’[2]. The reality of his mother’s mortality is petrifying enough., and the monster’s stories, told in third-person narrative, echo the fairy-tale style as a contrast to Conor’s loss of innocence.
While the word ‘cancer’ is never mentioned, it is alluded to through his mother’s symptoms: ‘her bare scalp looked too soft, too fragile in the morning light, like a baby’s.’[3] The brutal comparison between the effect of chemotherapy on the body and the purity of a baby adds to the tragedy of the illness. Through this haunting imagery, Ness shows her vulnerability through Conor’s adolescent eyes; he refuses to accept the illness, but its presence manifests in his mother’s deteriorating appearance.
As he witnesses the failure of each brutal treatment, Conor descends into a downward spiral of hopelessness and despair. According to mental health charity Mind, ‘Anticipatory grief is a sense of loss that we feel when we are expecting a death.’[4] Ness displays Conor’s anticipatory grief through the motif of time, with the repetition of the monster’s arrival time, (12.07) and Conor’s obsession with the clocks it appears on. Interestingly, the opening credits of the film adaptation are based around the cogs of a clock, emphasising this motif.
Nicholas Tucker writes: ‘children can be truly fascinated by the whole topic of time as they gradually find out more about it, along with its other imitations of mortality and change.’[5] Conor spends the final months of his mother’s life watching her slip away and begins fixating on the aspect of time. When left alone in his grandmother’s living room, Ness describes her antique clock as ‘getting on with its own, private life, not caring about Conor at all.’[6] With nobody to blame, Conor destroys the clock in a fit of rage. When his grandmother discovers the mess, her stony exterior vanishes; she omits a ‘groaning, moaning keening sound’[7] and smashes a display cabinet, before bursting into tears. Ness’s representation of childhood grief, and the helplessness of terminal illness, is hauntingly accurate, and this chapter is arguably one of the most influential in the novel.
The repercussions of Conor’s grief isolate him, and Ness illustrates this through visual imagery: ‘it was like a circle had opened up around him, a dead area with Conor at the centre, surrounded by landmines that everyone was afraid to walk through.’[8] The evocative imagery of ‘dead area’[9] and the metaphor ‘surrounded by landmines’[10] accurately depict Conor’s loneliness and detachment from society. Conor’s teachers, friends, even his father, are afraid to navigate Conor’s emotional ‘landmines’[11], instead treating him like a victim, which isolates him further. When Conor expects punishment for destroying the clock, his father says: ‘What could possibly be the point?’[12], and this response damages Conor’s sense of normality.
As the novel is aimed at young adults, the plot differs to children’s books. According to Tucker, adolescent readers understand that, in a novel, ‘Physical difficulties do not simply disappear.’[13]. Conor begs the monster, ‘You have to heal her!’[14], but his efforts are futile. His fears and desperation manifest into a recurring nightmare, ‘bordered on three sides by a dark and impenetrable forest’[15], and in a heart-breaking moment, Conor releases his mother’s hand, losing her into an imaginary dark abyss. Ness’s Gothic, fairy-tale imagery reflects Emily Bronte’s description in Wuthering Heights: ‘the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder’[16]. Her pathetic fallacy and dark, frightening imagery encapsulate the anguish of her main characters, just as Conor’s nightmare reflects his internal struggle.
Despite Ness’s success, novels for younger readers depicting illness and grief often face criticism. Bernice E. Cullinan states: ‘it is difficult for mature men and women to cope with the impact of tragedies, we should not prematurely burden children with them.’[17] As an adult, I found Ness’s portrayal of terminal illness and grief evocatively accurate, and understand why some critics believe children should be protected. However, 1 in 2 people will now get cancer in their lifetime[18]. The possibility of children encountering it is staggeringly high, and I believe in the importance of representing it in their literature. By opening this discussion, writers aid the healing process.
In reference to life, Ness said: ‘We have to tell stories about it, or we couldn’t live in it.’[19] Through the monster, he teaches young readers that the path to healing starts with ‘speaking the truth.’[20]. This message resonates across modern children’s literature. The picture book Duck, Death and the Tulip prepares children for the loss of a loved one. Like A Monster Calls, this story uses personification and anthropomorphism to encourage children to discuss their grief with loved ones. Elsewhere, It’s a No Money Day reached headlines recently for teaching children about modern-day poverty.
Furthermore, Conor is presented as a young carer. At one point, his grandmother says: ‘“I’m here because thirteen-year-old boys shouldn’t be wiping down counters without being asked to first.”’[21] According to Young Minds, there are currently 700,000 young carers in the UK[22]. While critics like Cullinan believe in shielding children from harsh realities, I believe in the importance of representing their struggles in literature. Transitioning into adulthood is challenging, especially in these unstable times, and reading about relatable characters like Conor can help young adults to feel less alone.
With issues such as deprivation, the refugee crisis, and terminal illness impacting our society, children worldwide are facing uncertainty. But by equipping them with knowledge and understanding of the painful realities of life, writers like Ness can eradicate ignorance and help young readers find their place in the world.
References: [1] Lara Prendergast, A Monster Calls wins first Carnegie and Kate Greenaway prize double, (2012), <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9331396/A-Monster-Calls-wins-first-Carnegie-and-Kate-Greenaway-prize-double.html> P.1. [2] Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls,(London: Walker Books, 2011) P.22.
[3] Ness, P.28. [4] Unknown Author, Bereavement (2019), <https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/bereavement/#.XdUzO1f7TIU> P.1. [5] Nicolas Tucker, The Child and the Book: A Psychological and Literary Exploration, London: Cambridge University Press, 1990) P.155. [6] Ness, P.120. [7] Ness, 142. [8] Ness, P.88. [9] Ness, P.88. [10] Ness, P.88. [11] Ness, P.88. [12] Ness, P.149. [13] Tucker, The Child and the Book: A Psychological and Literary Exploration, P.149. [14] Ness, P.204. [15] Ness, P.208. [16] Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, (London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847) P.110. [17] Bernice E. Cullinan, Reality Reflected in Children’s Literature, (Illinois: The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), 1974), retrieved from <https://www.jstor.org/stable/41387183> P.416. [18] Cancer Research UK, 1 in 2 people in the UK will get cancer, (2015), <https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer-news/press-release/2015-02-04-1-in-2-people-in-the-uk-will-get-cancer> P.1. [19] Unknown Interviewer, Patrick Ness: An Exclusive Interview on A Monster Calls, (2016), <Patrick Ness: An Exclusive Interview on A Monster Calls> P.1. [20] Ness, P.224. [21] Ness, P.59. [22] YoungMinds, Young Carers (2019) <https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/looking-after-yourself/young-carers/> P.1.