2024/002: The House in the Cerulean Sea — T J Klune

“He’s here to make sure I don’t burn anyone alive with the power of my mind and then consume their souls from their smoking carcass.”
“Rock on, little dude,” J-Bone said, offering a high five which Lucy gladly accepted. “I mean, I hope that doesn’t happen to me, but you do you.” [p. 263]

Linus Baker is forty years old. He lives in a city where it always rains. He has a house, an unfriendly cat, an intrusive neighbour and a substantial record collection, and he works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. One day, amid the usual workplace miseries and conflicts, he's called upstairs by Extremely Upper Management and tasked to investigate a remote orphanage run by a mysterious chap named Arthur Parnassus. Linus (and his unimpressed cat) make the long journey, only to be met by someone who's probably a supernatural being, and to encounter several more magical beings. For the children in Arthur's care are all magical, and some of them are very odd indeed; a wyvern, a shapechanging Pomeranian, a bearded female gnome, an amorphous blob, another sprite, and Lucy (short for Lucifer) who is the literal Antichrist. Though there's little or no mention of the non-anti Christ or of organised religion, or indeed of magical adults.

Linus is initially nervous and prejudiced, but soon comes to realise that the children are people -- not just Magical, but Youth, to be protected and cared for and given a home -- and that Arthur is an excellent protector for them. Linus also finds himself thinking of Arthur as a friend... or something more. Perhaps the Department in Charge of Magical Youth is not as infallible as he'd always assumed. Perhaps he can change things.

This is a sweet and sentimental novel, focussing on Linus' transformation rather than on the underlying inequalities. Lucy may not be fulfilling his appalling destiny but he's surely still a world-class threat, especially if his daddy comes visiting. Arthur, too, is capable of fearsome behaviour. But Linus is convinced -- on the basis of some sympathetic souls in the nearby village -- that he can make the world a better place: a laudable intention, and one that is rewarded by a sense of belonging and an opportunity for romantic love. The House in the Cerulean Sea is simplistic and rose-tinted, but it's a pleasant evening's read when the world is shaded grey and it always rains in the city.

Since I read this novel I've discovered that the author consciously based the scenario on the Sixties Scoop>, a welfare scheme in mid-20th century Canada that 'removed Indigenous children from their families and communities and placed them in non-Indigenous foster homes or adoptive families, institutions, and residential schools'. I was not aware of the Sixties Scoop, and I'm not comfortable about how Klune has used it.

Fulfils the ‘features the ocean’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.