Five Stars – Timely and Timeless!
When novels meaningfully portray current events, like the novels of Charles Dickens set in then contemporary London, we call them timely. When they communicate topics of universal importance and portray characters we never want to forget, like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee or The Plague by Albert Camus, we call them timeless. When a novel is written well before the disturbing or catastrophic events it predicts, such as 1984 by George Orwell, we call it prescient. And when a prescient novel is published during such events but was written before them, we call its timeliness prescient and its prescience timeless.
The Notch is a recently published debut novel by the acclaimed screenwriter, director, and filmmaker Tom Holland. It was obviously written well before the COVID-19 pandemic as there is a waiting time of at least eighteen months from the time an author submits his manuscript to his publisher and when it is eventually offered for sale. Was Tom Holland prescient when writing The Notch, a story of moral and human-caused crises in the time of a pandemic? The timeliness of this novel, published as the world is beset by COVID-19, is compelling evidence that he was. The Notch is timely and will be timeless.
The story is propulsive: Its plot is propelled by a race against a pandemic that at the time of the appearance of its protagonist, an ethereal boy with palliative powers, has been striking suddenly and randomly, wiping out alarming portions of the populations of major cities. As governments worldwide, ominously including our own, confront, investigate, and struggle to understand the inexplicable flareups of this ineffable deadly pestilence, the boy appears, walking out of a cloud of glare and dust from a notch separating two mountains in the American southwest.
As the boy goes about his mission, the characters he encounters discover that he can make the lame walk, he can cure cancer, he can raise the dead. But at great cost to his strength, health, and perhaps to his existence. Strong evidence suggests he can defeat the pandemic and the United States government is determined to capture him and do whatever it takes to find out if and how he can. Even if it costs the boy his life.
After reaching his destination, perhaps completing his mission, the boy must return to the notch in a race against an inexorably setting sun. Should he not return to the notch before sunset, he will likely perish. But bad hombres, as well as ruthless government agents, discover his powers and wanting them for their own nefarious purposes, also threaten to impede his return.
Tom Holland is best known for his work creating horror films. His powerful writing, prose and prosody, in The Notch is a testament to a creativity that extends well beyond the genre that brought him fame. This action-adventure is deeply thought provoking. In a world beset by an unstoppable and seemingly undefeatable pestilence, the principal characters must examine their actions, beliefs, desires, lust, fate, and faith. The essence of Christianity in this story, forgiveness and self-sacrifice, cannot be ignored just as the essence of soulfulness is evident in the novels of Graham Greene, Robert Stone, or Walker Percy or the stories of Flannery O’Conner.
The writing, in short chapters, is astonishing with sparkling dialog, sudden and surprising action that continuously propels the story, enhancing its enjoyment. The Notch is, in the truest sense, a page turner. Don’t make the mistake of beginning it just after dinner as you may find yourself turning the last page near dawn. Within the pages of The Notch, the reader is in the hands of a wise author who knows his characters and the world they and we inhabit. Tom Holland is a novelist who knows where hope is strong and where spirituality is still possible in our beating, restless, striving hearts.
Tom Holland’s oeuvre of classic films have a literary and humorous bent. They include, among many others, Child’s Play, Fright Night, Psycho II and the adaptation of Stephen King’s Thinner and The Langoliers. He is a Saturn Award recipient for writing and for directing Fright Night. And he is the author of four published very enjoyable short stories that I recommend: “Glitter,” “Shrunk,” “The Boy,” and (the wonderfully hilarious) “Suzie-69.”
I purchased a hardcover first edition version of The Notch directly from the publisher. It will grace one of my bookshelves as I will eagerly hope for and await the next novel to be published by the talented Tom Holland.
