The Book of Love: A Novel by Kelly Link

Sometimes a heart fails the one who loves it best.

Kelly Link always has original tales, and her debut novel is in the same fashion as her short stories. My mind was a bit all over the place with this book, it took me longer to finish reading but I have been in a strange headspace lately anyway. In one of the most bizarre stories, I have ever read, teenagers Daniel, Laura and Mohammed “Mo” have died but don’t stay dead. They are not quite sure what happened, nor where they were after whatever happened occurred. They know it was a terrible place, a nothingness, a prison and they do not want to go back. They dragged themselves out of that world and ended up in Mr. Anabin’s music room at Lewis Latimer Public School. Though they have materialized, something is off, even their skin feels wrong. The strange middle aged music teacher tells them “I made you out of yourselves, what you were and had been.” They brought along luggage in the form of a fourth person, but how can that be? Not a person really, more of an entity? Then there is Bogomil who had them, who haunts them and wants to know how they got out.

Nobody wants to go back with Bogomil and Mr. Anabin says if they wish to stay, he and Bogomil must come to an agreement. “Perhaps a game?” A series of tests, a trial and if they succeed, all will be…normal and right as rain. Obey the rules and they can stay alive, go home. But what is written by creepy Bog on the blackboard, “2 Return 2 Remain”, makes no sense. How can sense be made if they don’t even know what happened?  When they learn they died a year ago, it is 2014 now, and their bodies weren’t found leaving their family a rotten mystery, doesn’t fill in the blanks. Mr. Anabin has fixed it, they have been abroad and have graduated after attending (on Full Scholarship) a program at a private conservatory in Ireland. They return to lives that moved on in their absence and they must cope, fit back in with this battle to face. The characters appear to us readers as if they are in a dreamlike state, and it could be the author’s intention, this haziness could be remnants of the dark place. They have magic, but it is not of the Harry Potter wow factor, which actually is more believable here. Bogomil changes form and terrorizes them, a man one minute, a white dog the next. He manipulates with his advice and warnings, dropping in as he pleases. We met Susannah first at the start of the novel, on her dead sister’s bed, and learn they have ‘issues’ with each other. Their father left the family a while back and they just got on with their lives. Laura was/is the good one while in their mother’s eyes Susannah is “sleepwalking through life with no plan for the future.” Mo is a gay orphan who had been living with his famous grandmother (a romance writer). He is crushed to learn she died while he was in that strange realm. She was all he had left, a mother to him after his own died. We get to know her through her library, writings and he wonders if her ghost is around. Mo feels guilt, that she was all alone when she died. Daniel is connected to Laura and Susannah, the three even had a band, and lived next door to each other all their lives. He has a huge family, many half-brothers, and half-sisters from his mother’s second marriage, as his father died when he was little. He knows they must feel letdown with his disappearing act, and then there is the complicated relationship with Susannah.

This novel is a strange soup composed of the supernatural, gods, magic, death, mysteries, animals, love, doom, strange weather, teenage drama. I cannot wrap my mind around what just happened. I enjoyed reading but I am not sure I understand all of it. Mo’s grandmother moved me, but I could not warm to Laura and Susannah. This book takes its time with you, but it was interesting and unique.

On that note, I have not given much away, and I haven’t unpacked the magic. I am still catching up on reviews after health issues, and this was a hard one to write about. I enjoy a challenge but this is something else. I do wonder though where Link gets these ideas from, for me it had a David Lynch quality.

Published February 13, 2024

Random House