“You shall be the thing [X] fears above all others, and conquers... Your way shall be very hard, very cruel. I must do terrible things to you, that you may become a monster." [p. 355]
On Labor Day, 1977, in the sleepy American suburb of Garrison Oaks, Carolyn's life changed. She and a dozen other children were orphaned, their homes obliterated, and they were adopted by 'Father'. Father, who seems very powerful, tells the children that they are Pelapi -- an old word that means 'librarian, but also apprentice, or perhaps student' -- and assigns each of them a Catalogue. Carolyn's Catalogue is language: all languages, human and otherwise. ("What if I don't want to?" she asks Father. "It won't matter," he replies. "I'll make you do it anyway.")
And so Carolyn grows up in the Library, studying and learning to live with the other Pelapi. Nobody is allowed knowledge of anyone else's Catalogue: this is a crime with appalling punishments. Time passes, but perhaps not chronologically. And then Father vanishes, and David (whose Catalogue is war) convenes the Pelapi to try to discover whether Father is dead. And if he is, which of the other powers -- eldritch beings whose ascendance would mean the end of complex life, and possibly also the sun -- will take his place?
This is not a novel for the faint-hearted: there are some truly harrowing scenes. And it's not a novel for the easily distracted, as it's fast-paced, told out of sequence and includes a labyrinthine plot that even the plotter can't think about (due to some of the others being mind-readers). The story is peppered with foreshadowings, and with asides that indicate a very different, and decidedly more horrific, history than the one we think we know. Luckily there are a couple of Everyman characters -- wanna-be Buddhist plumber Steve, and career soldier turned special agent Erwin -- to temper the extreme weirdness and growing inhumanity of Carolyn and her siblings.
For they are, in their various ways, losing whatever human emotions they possessed when Father brought them to the Library. Carolyn knows all languages but is laughably bad at actual communication. David is certain that violence solves every problem, and enjoys killing. Jennifer, the healer, uses drugs to soften her world. And Margaret hangs out with the dead...
The horror elements are extremely horrific: The Library at Mount Char is told, though, with black humour and a strong sense of the ridiculous. The characters are fascinating, though seldom likeable. Only near the end of the novel do we find out what really happened on Labor Day 1977: only after calamities have been averted and retribution awarded does Hawkins reveal, and conclude, the overall arc of the narrative.
Despite some pacing issues, and the ubiquitous sexual violence against strong female characters, it's a massively impressive debut novel (published in 2014: Hawkins' second novel is due in September 2026) and I would like to reread it at some stage. At least I'll be able to skip braced against some of the nastier scenes: and I'd like to see just how the overall plot is constructed, and appreciate the worldbuilding, without being distracted by atrocities.
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