Cover illustration: Paul Blow
A remarkable body of work
It was a very major loss to writing for young people when bravely original, award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick died last year, tragically all too young. I was a huge admirer right from his first novels in the early 2000s. (See my post from November 2014). Subsequently he wrote prolifically producing work for a range of audiences, including both adults and younger children, but his finest works were almost certainly his YA titles, including what I, and many, consider his towering masterpieces, the chilling Midwinterblood and the challenging, but devastating, The Ghosts of Heaven. (See my review, again from November 2014.) Amongst many other titles, Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black, a collaboration with his brother, Julian*, and one of my favourite graphic artists, Alexis Deacon, is also umissable.
In more recent years Marcus Sedgwick has struggled with serious illness in the form of debilitating CFS (or ME). He has nevertheless completed some further remarkable writing. His three most recently published works of fiction have been in the ‘accessible reading’ format, Dark Peak for OUP’s ‘Super-Readable Rollercoasters’, Wrath for the brilliant Barrington Stoke, and now the posthumously published Ravencave, also from Barrington Stoke.
Easy to read, but with depth too
His writing suits this style of book, with its comparatively short length and straightforward language, rather well. Although, actually, it is more the case that his writing ability is such that he can create multi-layered, high quality fiction whilst still meeting the requisites of readability. In fact, he demonstrates wonderfully that there is no need whatsoever to patronise young readers simply because they lack confidence in actually accessing text. Further, he is able to create a context where the economy of language use, its terse directness, actually enhances the effectiveness of the story being told, bringing both setting and characters to life with vivid starkness. He also succeeds in communicating deep feelings with affecting and often beautiful simplicity, creating telling images that will live long in the minds of readers.
The best of Barrington Stoke titles (of which there are many) make excellent choices for any reader, as well as fulfilling their brief of access for the less confident. But Ravencave is one of the supreme examples, alongside titles like Anthony McGowan’s Lark and Mal Peat’s The Family Tree. These are fine works of literature in their own right,
What is it all about?
It is hard to discuss the many merits of Ravencave without spoilers. And this is to be avoided at all costs, since it is the gradual, and very clever, build up of revelations that provides the compulsive grip of this story.
Suffice to say that the basic action of the story involves the events of a single day, although extensively suplementsed with recalled accounts from the past. It centres on a young boy, Jamie, during an outing in the Yorkshire Dales with his father, mother and older brother, Robbie. The prime objective of their hike is to scatter the ashes of his recently deceased grandmother in the area where she was born. It features several (actual) locations in the Dales, which, in the story, are associated with previous generations of his family. It is a place of ghosts. However, what startles from the very first words is the way in which Jamie seems strangely distanced from the rest of his family, as indeed they are from each other. They are:
‘ . . . four souls spread across the Yorkshire landscape.’ (p 9)
Clearly this is a book very much about family, about their relationship to each other, but also about their links to the past, to heritage, to their an ancestry. Jamie needs very much to discover exactly who he is, and where he fits.
It is obvious that particular place meant a great deal to Mark Sedgwick. Each of these last three of his books relates strongly to a very singular and affecting location. And this certainly applies to Ravencave; it is not only about its characters’ relationship with each other and to the past, but also very much to the land, to the place where they do, or don’t, belong. It is a novel of both landscape and inscape.
The author clearly had strong socio-political views too and a thread of socialism runs through his narrative. This is linked particularly to working people displaced from their livelihood by a minority of rich, powerful owners who want to get even richer by reducing their workforce and embracing allegedly more efficient, but essentially cheaper, ways of doing things. He was very much on the side of the dispossessed, and admired their resilience.
‘How do people keep on going, even when everything seems to be against them?’ (p 9)
Ultimately, however, what comes through most strongly of all from Marcus Sedgwick is a basic confidence in the kindness and caring nature of ordinary human beings.
‘In both big things and small things, most people are good. They care for each other - it’s what people do.’ (p 110)
Last book and testament
This is a story about being reconciled with death but also about embracing life. It is a story all the more poignant being written by a seriously ill author, who must have realised he could be coming towards the end of his life. It is perhaps a last testament.
In the story, Robbie’s mum ‘ . . . wants there to be, well . . . more.
More to all of this, this life we fall into and fall out of . . . . (She) wants to believe the world means something. ‘ (p 44)
So I think did Marcus Sedgwick. And through his remarkable writing he showed us that it does.
*There are also other excellent YA reads from Julian Sedgwick, the latest of which, Tsunami Girl, is another outstanding collaboration, this time with manga artist, Chie Kutsuwada.