The Closet by James Tynion IV
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release Date: October 18, 2022

The protagonist, Thom, is a stay-at-home dad whose four-year-old is having nightmares of a monster that resides in the closet and sits on his chest in the manner Fuseli’s “The Nightmare.” Thom is both someone that you want to shake and / or slap, and – yet, at the same time – he is every single one of us at some point in our lives. (i.e. He is completely overwhelmed and stuck in a fantasy that he can dig out from under the rubble of past mistakes and be born anew, and the fact that he can’t ever be free of the past and always has to deal with momentary reality just adds to his anger and frustration.) The thing is, Thom isn’t a bad guy, but you still want to slap him. That’s what I call excellent character development.

I don’t know where the overarching story is going, and don’t even know whether it’s truly speculative fiction or rather domestic realism, but I know it draws one in and is evocative.

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