The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman

Well, this book was a gift from my brother. After bigbadwolf, I couldn't bring myself to buy books in retail price anymore. This book was sold at RM57.90 at Popular book store. For that kind of money, I could buy around 6 books in the bigbadwolf. But, the perk of buying books in normal book store is I can get the latest book that I want. Still, thanks bro! 

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

This novel gives me the feeling of American Gods. The story started with a man (the narrator, it's told in first person narrative) driving around his childhood home after going to a funeral, I think. Then, he started to remember about his childhood, his first kiss and a farm house he visited when he was a child and the girl on the farm house. 

He remembered when his parents faced financial trouble, they rented out a room to lodger, The lodger then committed suicide after losing all his money to gambling, and the lodger chose to die near the farm house because it's at the end of lane with few people. Then, the man (was a child then) met the farm house inhabitants, the old Mrs Hemstock, Mrs Hemstock and Lettie Hemstock. To comfort him, the Hemstock offered him fresh cow milk. The one plot I remembered was it was the first time the narrator drank cow milk directly out of a cow, fresh cow milk, not from a bottle. Hahaha!

After that, he had bad dreams and somehow a coin was forced into his mouth. So, he went to the Hemstock. Apparently, the suicide had let some ancient spirit out and the spirit was messing with the people there. So, Lettie brought the child to banish the spirit. Unfortunately, the child became a tunnel for the evil spirit to the real world. The spirit then somehow turned into the nanny of the family and tormented the boy. The spirit also washed the father's brain and caused him to torture the child. 

So, the child ran away to the Hemstock for protection. To protect the child, Lettie summoned some very hungry "hunger birds" to take away the spirit. However, since the child was a tunnel to the spirit, the "eater" wanted to eat the child too, Lettie tried to protect the child and almost died. Then, the old Mrs Hemstock came and chased away the hunger birds. Then, Mrs Hemstock brought Lettie to the pond (actual is the Ocean, some review said that it's the cosmic life force) of the Hemstock Farm and gave Lettie to the Ocean. Then, Mrs Hemstock told the child not to blame himself and one day, the Ocean would give Lettie back.

Now the grown up narrator went back to the Hemstock Farm and met with the same Mrs Hemstock, they talked. Apparently, the narrator went back to Hemstock Farm a few times in the course of his life, however, after that, he wouldn't have the recollections about it until he went back again.  It's a good thing though, carrying a burden (guilt) in the heart is hard for anybody. 

In this story, the Hemstock only need man if they want to breed more men, it sounds like the parthenogenesis in fish and a bit like the old Chinese fantasy novel, the "Women Kingdom 女儿国" from "The Journey to the West", in the Women Kingdom, there's no man, if a woman wants to reproduce, she just drink water from a water source and she will get pregnant and give birth to a baby girl. Quite interesting!

Looking forward to another book from Neil Gaiman!