Review: Mr. Flood's Last Resort

Mr. Flood's Last Resort by Jess Kidd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm not a fan of horror. But what a ride this book was!

I borrowed it from the library, and the writing hooked me from page one. Vivid, vibrant, descriptive to the point of being visceral. Kidd's diction infused every sense into every page and made visualizing the scenes easy. On the other hand, there were so many details, so much sensory information, that it made verbalizing difficult. The cognitive effort required meant I was missing the humour and didn't realize it until it was pointed out to me. It’s not for lack of a sense of humour but the cognitive effort to visualize, retain, build up the big picture, think deeper during verbalizing, left no resources for seeing the funny until pointed out to me.

There are two storylines, seemingly unrelated. They are delineated by the content but also visually by no illustration at the top of some of the chapters and those same un-illustrated chapters being short. The illustrations kind of gave a clue to what a chapter was about, although it didn't work too well for me because I'd forget what they were and even that they existed. I didn't really begin to pay attention to them until well into the book.

I liked the unreliable narrator even though it made it difficult for me to predict what would happen next and to build up a big picture. The plethora of details kind of drowned me, obscuring what was important. A minor detail suddenly became key. A real memory test! Eventually, I began to see how the two storylines related to each other.

The characters drove the book. Maud and her saints introduced many terms and ideas unfamiliar to me, not being Catholic. I looked them up; knowing things like Mass cards does help. Yet having to look things up didn't detract, rather they enhanced my enjoyment of the story. It was like the story expanded into my universe, the characters became part of my reality.

The ending gripped me. Fear, hope, revulsion, egging Maud on, all intermingled and kept me reading to the last word. Maud grew as Mr. Flood's story unfolded. By the last chapter, she came into her own and made a momentous decision. Sadness tinged, and I still wonder about the saints. That's the mark of an excellent book: months later you still wonder about characters and events, about what they mean, their vividness remaining in your mind.

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