Why this book: Strongly recommended by Tim Ferriss and Mike Rowe.  I’d also read Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and found Gaiman’s magical realism not only enjoyable but stimulating.  I was inspired to read something different, and so finally got around to ordering this book.

Summary in 3 Sentences: A toddler unwittingly escapes a brutal murder of his family, by simply wandering out of the house and down the street at night and into a cemetery, while the family’s murderer was at his grisly work.  The child encounters the ghosts of those buried in the graveyard, and they hide and protect him from the murderer who comes looking for him, and then they decide to raise him, since he no longer has parents of his own. The rest of the book is a coming of age novel, with the bizarre twist of coming of age in a graveyard, being mentored and taught by “people” long dead, teaching the child parapsychological skills and tricks, introducing him to a different reality and preparing him to enter the world of the living.

My Impressions: Neil Gaiman’s specialty is magical realism, and this book is some of that, but a little bit different.   Its target audience is youth – 8-12 years old with life lessons appropriate to young people approaching puberty.  But it also an enjoyable and interesting read for adults with a vivid imagination.

The story begins with our young toddler wandering out of his house, up the street and into a graveyard while his parents were being murdered, by a Man Jack, and he is saved from a similar fate by those in the graveyard deceiving the murderer.  The graveyard was many centuries old, nearly abandoned and over-grown by weeds in a small town in England.  Its “inhabitants” had died in some cases hundreds of years before – and their perspectives on life and the world were also frozen in time.   They chose to keep the now orphaned  and unassuming toddler and raise him in the graveyard, and they gave him the name Bod -short for Nobody. 

The book is about Bod growing up, coming of age, maturing into young adulthood.  Gradually Bod rebels against the restrictions placed up on him by those in the graveyard and begins interaction with the world of the living.   Bod is a normal little boy anywhere, quiet and curious, intimidated by authority, but also a bit bold and adventurous.  But he is growing up in a different world,  one without other children, and with only the ghosts of the deceased residents of the graveyard for company.  The graveyard has its own hierarchy which reflects the status of its residents in life, which is of course comical among the dead, and there is indeed a quasi-social life among the deceased.   Bod is assigned guardians – who he refers to as his parents – and a tutor to share his wisdom and teach him about the world and to keep him out of trouble.  His tutor, his parents and other ghosts advise him to stay safe in the graveyard, and avoid contact with the living, in order to avoid being polluted or otherwise mislead or deceived.  They also teach him how to do things that ghosts can do, but people can’t – to disappear, to move through walls, and other such supernatural tricks that come in handy later when he matures and has more interaction with the world of the living.

As Bod grows up, and becomes a young boy, he becomes more curious about life outside the walls of the cemetery, and befriends a little girl who enjoys wandering into the cemetery for peace and quiet. This is the beginning of his realization that he is not like other living people and that he lives in a unique world.  As he gets older, against the guidance of his parents and mentor, he wanders outside the graveyard and has more and more interactions with the living, and is exposed to greed, dishonesty, and  beligerence.  When Bod stumbles into the “ghoul gate”in the cemetery Bod descends into another dimension of reality here evil lurks, where good and evil are at odds, in a supernatural world that we do not see. After stumbling into that terrifying world, he barely escapes to return to the peace and quiet of the cemetery.

Eventually his guardians and mentor decide that Bod needs to go to school with other children.  He is a good and diligent student, but he keeps to himself and doesn’t fit into the social activities of the other children.   As a quiet loner, he becomes an easy target for the school bullies.  He is small and shy, but clever, and has a few tricks up his sleeve as well as a few powers that other children don’t have which put the bullies in their place.   Eventually he decides school is not for him.

Toward the end of the book this battle between good and evil bring home why he is in the graveyard, and he confronts why his parents were murdered when the murderer returns to find him and finish the job of murdering the entire family.    We learn that this murder which brought him into the graveyard to begin with, is part of a bigger battle between good and evil.  In the end Bod has to decide whether to live in the world of the living, where good and evil coexist, a world of order and disorder, chaos and predictability, or whether to remain in the graveyard, where nothing changes, but it is peaceful, safe and comfortable.  He chooses life – with all its hazards. 

The Graveyard Book reminded me of Lincoln in the Bardo which also takes place in a graveyard with the ghosts of the deceased sharing views on what they were observing while President Lincoln was visiting the grave of his son Todd.   The theme of fate also arises – was Bod “fated” to escape the murder of his family? And was the attempt by the murderers to find him and finish the job also a futile attempt to outwit fate? 

This is a fun book – clever and short – it would indeed be fun to read it to or with a young person and then discuss it.  But also a fun and interesting book for adults.  I enjoyed Gaiman’s creativity and his clever story telling.