Review: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

“The Graveyard Book” (Neil Gaiman)

Deadlines at work have kept me from posting this past week, sorry about that.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to see Neil Gaiman in person when he was here in Santa Monica, which is a shame. From all the interviews I’ve read and listened to, he’s a really humble guy.

In my book, he’s hit another home run with The Graveyard Book. This bun of a book has risen in the proverbial oven of Neil Gaiman’s mind over the past twenty years. He hatched the idea watching his young son ride his bike up and down the path of a churchyard, between the gravestones. When he first sat down to write the book, however, Gaiman felt he was too poor a writer to do the story the justice he felt it deserved. He revisited it every few years and always reached the same conclusion. Finally, a few years ago, he sat down to write it.

The Graveyard Book tells the story of Nobody Owens, a real live boy who, after his parents are murdered, crawls into a graveyard. After a brief debate, the denizens of the dead decide to take on the task of raising him. While the dead use tricks like haunting and dreamwalking to scare human folks on occasion, it turns out they’re, on the whole, not a bad lot. Bod finds his way into all sorts of trouble, and the man Jack who murdered his parents looms threateningly in the background for much of the tale.

As fun as the book is, though, it doesn’t approach the genius of Gaiman’s masterwork American Gods. I wish he’d return to a more serious genre. But it’s still fun to join him on his inventive expeditions.