ŷ������

Never Rest
By Marshall Thornton
Published by Kenmore Books, 2022
Five stars

“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.��

This quotation from British author Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, “Frankenstein,�� is a brilliant choice. First, it is a reminder that what most of us know about that title has nothing to do with the novel, and everything to do with the Hollywood image of Boris Karloff in extreme makeup. Secondly, this quotation prepares us for what is to follow: a darkly comical and deeply poignant story about good intentions gone awry.

Marshall Thornton’s novel is an insightful riff on that Frankenstein idea: a man seeking to do good—and for the best reasons—unintentionally creates something the world, if it knew, would consider a monster. The moral issue here, however, is not one of a mere mortal daring to challenge the creative power of God; but a man of science forgetting that the monster in question is sentient and has feelings of his own.

The monster, as it were, is Jake Margate, diagnosed at the age of fifteen with a pernicious form of leukemia. After five years of misery as doctors have battled his disease, Jake is ready to go. He is coerced by his desperate mother to enter an isolated clinic housed in a former Catholic boy’s school, where he is left in the care of the mysterious Dr. Harry.

I read Shelley’s “Frankenstein�� many years ago, and was, honestly, underwhelmed. It is not really a horror story, but a wordy, philosophical look at the issues of morality surrounding what was (in 1818) the emerging quest for scientific knowledge as it pertained to human life. Remembering that in Shelley’s time, medicine was primitive and largely helpless against any real disease, the story of Jake and Dr. Harry is more like sci-fi than horror.

There is a love story here, too, centered in Goliath, another young man, dying not of leukemia but of cystic fibrosis. Also Dr. Harry’s experimental subject, Goliath—who calls himself Goth—is a natural companion for Jake. This is of course a major diversion from the idea of the solitary monster in “Frankenstein�� (unless you consider the really campy film sequel with Elsa Lanchester as the reluctant bride of Frankenstein). In Goth, Jake discovers something his illness has denied him. Both young men find something worth living for.

From the first page, the book is funny, based on Jake’s snarky, late-teenage attitude toward his miserable situation. Jake’s humor keeps this sad tale oddly light-hearted, until the author decides to let in the darkness inherent in the plot.

As the incompetence and secrecy at the clinic begin to clue Jake into exactly what he’s in the middle of, he also becomes aware of some unintended consequences to his treatment that even Dr. Harry couldn’t have imagined. The reason for this, I think, is that the author wanted to let the readers�� imaginations run a bit free, so that the bittersweet ending would leave us pondering possibilities and not hopelessness.

This is a very good, compelling book. It takes a classic story and turns it into a modern conundrum, well suited to the complicated world we live in now.