The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce

It's the hottest summer on record and Britain is infested with an invasion of ladybirds. A young man named David takes up a job at seaside holiday resort in Skegness, keen to escape the future mapped out for him by his stepfather. His choice of Skegness is informed by the fact that this was the last place visited by his real father before his disappearance. David is caught in a bizarre love triangle whilst he is visited by disturbing visions of a man on the beach, and Britain is caught on the cusp of a new era.

The Year of the Ladybird is the latest novel by Graham Joyce. I've read two of his previous novels, The Tooth Fairy and The Silent Land, and both were haunting, well-written and deeply atmospheric works which provided much food for thought. The Year of the Ladybird shares some of the strong points of these novels but ultimately is not quite as effective a book.

Early chapters see David arrive at the holiday camp and take up his duties, which are described in considerable detail. Like his publisher-mate Christopher Priest, Joyce has the knack of taking the mundane and making it interesting, through clever prose or by imbuing the ordinary with the hint of the extraordinary. 1976 was a year of great social change in the UK, with an explosion in popularity of the white supremacist National Front party and the country in economic turmoil, with the arrival of punk music (and the associated changes in British culture that would come with it) just around the corner. Combined with the remarkable heatwave of that year and the ladybird invasion, this gives Joyce a great setting for a book about a young man trying to come to terms with himself and his own past.

However, the novel is highly restrained and David is fairly reactive as a protagonist. His bizarre encounters with a strange man on the beach are disturbingly-written, but ultimately David shrugs them off and gets on with his life. His romantic dalliances (with a married woman who isn't what she appears to be, and later a much healthier relationship with one of his female co-workers) form much of the spine of the book, but are not imbued with much drama. A misunderstanding which leads David to accidentally attend a National Front meeting at a pub appears to start a new plot thread, which again just tails off. There is a moment of revelation at the end, but it is fairly straightforward. The result is a slight novel that doesn't really seem to be about anything, but has more going on than first appears.

As an evocation of a particular point in Britain's history, the book is highly successful. David's characterisation seems under-cooked, but the surrounding cast are memorable and varied. The minutiae of holiday camp life is both humorous and nostalgic. The prose is restrained and elegant. The fantasy elements are very lightly added (to the point that it's highly debatable if this is in any way a fantasy book at all) but work well when they are evoked.

The Year of the Ladybird (****) is a quiet, slight, evocative novel. It is a well-written snapshot of a particular moment in time and works very well on that basis. Those looking for something more plot-driven would be advised to look elsewhere, however. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Cover art: Chris Wooding, Graham Joyce, Kim Stanley Robinson

More cover art goodness:


2312 is Kim Stanley Robinson's next novel, a big epic set in and throughout the Solar system in the titular year. Sadly, the original plan to release the novel on 2 March (2/3/12 in the UK dating system) seems to have fallen through, with the novel currently scheduled for May instead. Orbit will be publishing in the UK with the suitably epic cover seen above.


Graham Joyce's new novel, Some Kind of Fairy Tale, is apparently a fresh take on the English 'woodland fantasy' subgenre (well-exemplified by Robert Holdstock's definitive Mythago Wood and Paul Kearney's A Different Kingdom) and will be published by Gollancz in the UK on 15 March with some nicely-understated cover art.


Gollancz are also issuing fresh, YA editions of Chris Wooding's Tales of the Ketty Jay sequence through their new Indigo line. The new Retribution Falls will be out on 5 January and will be followed by The Black Lung Captain later in the year. The new cover is striking and brings home the Western influence in the series, but I must admit at disappointment with the lack of airship action on this edition.

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce

Jake and Zoe have been married for a decade and decide to take a celebratory skiing holiday in the Pyrenees (not the Alps, as some advance cover blurbs are saying). They are caught in a monstrous avalanche, barely survive, and make their way back to their hotel only to find that the entire village has been evacuated. Cut off from the outside world, with every attempt to leave the village blocked by weather or strange twists in geography, the two of them gradually realise that something strange has happened, but is it a curse or a blessing?


The Silent Land is the latest novel by Graham Joyce, the author of the excellent Tooth Fairy. Last year he achieved great success with the acclaimed Memoirs of a Master Forger by William Heaney, and The Silent Land looks set to continue that success. It has already been optioned as a film months ahead of publication, a medium its short length and deeply haunting atmosphere (occasionally reminiscent of McCarthy's The Road) should be a perfect match for.

The Silent Land is atmospheric, compulsively readable and emotionally intense, ranging from being utterly terrifying at one moment to (but never tritely) romantic the next. Jake and Zoe are well-drawn central characters, flawed and convincing in their ordinariness and their reactions at being plunged into a strange place. Joyce also keeps up a gradually increasing tension as increasingly odd events take place, and the reader is invited to put the pieces of the puzzle together before the final answer is revealed in the closing pages.


Complaints are few and paltry. Those who prefer more ambiguity may be disappointed that we are given a final answer at the end (although hardly every mystery is answered) and viewers of a certain British SF TV series may work out what is going on long before the characters do. Otherwise this is a terrific novel.

The Silent Land (*****) is a quiet, intimate portrait of people, relationships and how they are tested by extraordinary circumstances. This could be one of the sleeper hits of the year. The novel is published in the UK on 18 November 2010 and in the USA on 22 March 2011.

The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce

When he is a young boy, Sam Southall loses a tooth and leaves it out for the tooth fairy to collect. Unfortunately, the tooth fairy is unhappy when Sam wakes up during the collection process, and the result is a long, fractious and unpleasant relationship that lasts the remainder of Sam's childhood.


As the years pass and Sam moves through adolescence with his best friends, Terry and Clive, their lives seem to be stricken with more than their fair share of tragedy and misfortune. Is this the doing of the malevolent tooth fairy, or is she merely a figment of Sam's imagination? A psychiatrist tries to get to the truth, with mixed results.

The Tooth Fairy was originally published in 1996 and won the British Fantasy Award the year after. It has gone on to become arguably Joyce's best-known novel. It is an effective, emotionally resonant story about growing up, childhood friendships and awkward teenage romances, with the question of whether the tooth fairy is real or merely a figment of Sam's mind providing an interesting and ambiguous mystery throughout the story.


It's told in an earthy manner, with some violence and sexual references, but not in a gratuitous manner. Iain M. Banks is a big fan of the novel and some echoes of The Wasp Factory can be detected in the book's uncompromising attitude, although The Tooth Fairy is somewhat more optimistic. The characters and situations are well-drawn, the family relationships work well and the fantastical elements are explored interestingly, although those looking for neat answers best be warned that there aren't any. The reader is often encouraged to come up with their own explanations and interpretations of story developments. Joyce nails the awkwardness of growing up very well in the book, and the atmosphere of life in the 1960s comes through nicely.

The Tooth Fairy (****½) is a dark, intriguing story about adolescence, family and friendships, well-told and enjoyable. The book is available now in the UK and USA.