Back in January I posted my thoughts on a Chizine title The World More Full of Weeping and how utterly and completely gobsmacked I was by it. Chizine sent along another novella, The Thief of Broken Toys by Tim Lebbon which I read last month and haven't been able to forget about. It's so subtle, so understated, that when it was finished I wasn't even sure entirely what happened. That doesn't mean the plot is hard to follow, just that Lebbon leads you along with such an infinite level of care that you turn the last page, with its heartbreaking conclusion, and think that couldn't possibly - he didn't just do that to me - I thought something else would happen and then you just sit back and think about it and a few weeks later you're still thinking about it.

I'm still thinking about this book.
The plot is simple - set in a small fishing village on the Cornish coast, the omniscient narrator introduces Ray, a father in deep mourning over the loss of his son Toby due to illness in the previous year. His marriage has fallen apart (not just because of the tragedy) and his wife now lives with in the village with a man who was once his best friend. Ray is still in the house, still close to Toby's room and his things, still utterly and completely paralyzed by loss. (His wife is also in deep mourning although she is coping much better.) Ray struggles to make basic conversation with the townspeople who reach out to him - even Rachel, whose son was Toby's friend. Rachel feels an increasing tenderness towards Ray and there is a possibility of something more there but he can't seem to see it yet, or acknowledge it. He can barely leave the house and walk the cliffs and wrap his head around this life that does not include his son. And then he meets the thief of broken toys.

There is a box of Toby's broken toys in his room, toys that Ray feels very guilty about because he promised (as parents do) to fix each of them but never got around to it. The mysterious thief seems to travel from place to place fixing toys. He fixes one for Ray and it seems like life gets better, like he can see a way to live in it, like he will miss Toby but be okay. But you read this and wonder if really it is all that easy and of course it isn't, because the thief needs a favor and Ray just doesn't seem to have it in him.

It's not what you think. Whatever you are thinking right this minute, know that you are very nearly certainly 100% wrong. This is not one of those bloody, horror-filled, terrifying books. It's not. But what it is, what you find here, is a different kind of scary story - a demand for something else from Ray and a punishment that is very nearly indescribable. In fact, as you turn that last page you realize that so many of those slash and burn writers don't know a damn thing about what real horror is about. They don't know what you should really be afraid of. They don't know anything.

But Tim Lebbon does. And he beats you up with that knowledge. He makes you bleed from the heart. It's stunning.

Chizine is doing some amazing things. Check them out and don't let The Thief of Broken Toys get away from you.

[Post pic of the Cornish coast.]