The Gargoyle
Andrew Davidson
Reviewed by Megan Chance
“All things in a single book bound by love.” That is the tagline on the cover of the advanced reading copy of THE GARGOYLE, by Andrew Davidson, and the tag is appropriate. This story delves into philosophy, history, myth, poetry and art, but mostly it is a story about love, particularly self-love and romantic love.
The book begins with our narrator (whose name I don’t think we ever see) in a car. He is stoned, drunk, and hallucinating, and drives off a cliff. The accident is horrendous; when he wakes up he’s in the burn unit of the hospital, and therein follows some of the most compelling and fascinating stuff in the book: what happens to a severely burned patient during his recovery. He spends his time planning his eventual suicide, but then he begins to be visited by another patient, a woman from the mental ward, Marianne Engel. She is a sculptress of gargoyles who claims that she has thousands of hearts to give away (one of which she gives to each gargoyle she sculpts), and that the last one belongs to our narrator. She claims that the two of them were lovers in medieval times, and that she is over seven-hundred years old. Is she bipolar? Or schizophrenic? Or are her claims true?
Then she begins to tell him stories. First she tells him stories of lovers who may or may not be real people, and then she begins to tell him of their past history together. Despite himself, he begins to listen, and to care for Marianne, and in doing so must ask himself questions about his own life, and what his future will be.
What THE GARGOYLE wants to be is a love story along the lines of Tristan and Isolde, or Romeo and Juliet, where love is star-crossed and permanent, even through tragedy and death. It is not quite that. Too many questions (in terms of its plot, not its philosophy) go unanswered, and it lacks the emotional intensity required for such a tale, and is marred by a tendency toward melodramatic statements that lessen rather than increase the sense of fatefulness and destiny. However, though I felt the love story between Marianne and the narrator, both in the present and the past, lacked intensity and focus, the mythical love stories that she tells are masterful and sincerely moving, and the historical detail of her life in medieval times was fascinating. In essence, while the plot and the relationship doesn’t quite live up to the goal the book sets for itself, nearly everything else is truly captivating.
THE GARGOYLE is a very good story with many compelling aspects, and I would not hesitate to recommend it. Mr. Davidson is a talented author with an intriguing way of thinking, and I look forward to seeing more from him.
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About the Reviewer:
Megan Chance is the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of several novels. Her first book won Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award for excellence in Romantic Fiction, and since then, her novels have received several awards and award nominations. The Best Reviews has said she writes “Fascinating historical fiction.” A former television news photographer with a BA from Western Washington University, Megan Chance lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters. Visit her website at www.meganchance.com.
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Read an Excerpt from THE SPIRITUALIST