Fiction Reviews
An Echo of Children
(2025) Ramsey Campbell, Flame Tree Press,
£20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, 247pp, ISBN 978-1-787-58978-0
Coral and Allan Clarendon have just moved to Barnwall, a seaside town on the Yorkshire coast with their young son Dean. Their new home is a bargain, maybe because the town has a dark past as an unsettling number of children have died there throughout history.
Well, the old master strikes again, right from the first page where there are comments and conversations that start the alarm bells ringing in the mind of the reader. Campbell has taken us to the home of Coral and Alan Claredon, a new home for them in the seaside town of Barnwall where they live with their six-year-old son, Dean. Both parents work from home, and seem to have little time for their son, drilling into him the necessity that he behaves, and he certainly does behave well, that’s very apparent to both sets of grandparents who are paying a visit. Even all the other adults they encounter in the town, from neighbours to shop-owners, seem to hold Dean in high regard, perhaps this is another fact to set the alarm bells ringing.
Something which does set those bells ringing is Dean mentioning his imaginary friend, Heady. Certainly, it raises the ire of his parents. Alan’s parents Thom and Jude notice the change in their son and can’t believe the strict way Dean is being treated. Tensions mount between parents and children of all varieties, even between the grandparents as Coral’s parents suggest to Thom that Jude’s “vagueness” and worries, might be the start of dementia. They make it clear to Thom that they don’t want Jude bathing Dean after she left their grandson alone in the bath because she left the bathroom thinking someone was shouting for her and couldn’t get back in because a towel had fallen behind the door. Jude insists she heard Thom calling on her, but Dean says it was Heady having fun, as he’s good at changing his voice. Of course, no-one believes in Heady until Thom and Jude see a shadowy figure in their bedroom, and then Alan and Coral confess that they believe there is a presence in their home after all. Something has to be done, not an exorcism but a subtler “cleansing” which seems to do the trick. Heady is gone, Dean is distraught, but was Heady there to protect Dean? Jude certainly seems to think so as she researches the history of the town which has seen many atrocities against children over the centuries ever since the Viking raids of old, and there is a very recent child murder which Thom knows about and keeps secret from Jude, but the internet keeps no secrets and it is not long before Jude believes that Dean is in danger, and must be saved, by them, especially when Alan and Coral take Dean out of school and away from the influence of a certain teacher.
An Echo of Children is another masterclass in quiet, disturbing horror writing from Ramsey Campbell, showing off his skewed, wrong-footing descriptive powers, and his ability to get into the heads of characters and build up the conflict and the tension and the dread. I remember the British tennis player, John Lloyd remarking when Britain reached the Davis Cup final only to play John McEnroe and liking it to be being in a sword fight against a master. A cut here, a nick there, and pretty soon you were bleeding to death all over the court. So it is with Campbell as he blends creepy encounters, snatches of conversation, glimpses out of the corner of the eye, and builds and builds on them to great effect to create a frisson of unease in different, everyday, locations from playing on the sand, to walking through the park, to fairground attractions – one, of course, being a deliciously creepy ghost train ride.
I am getting old, and Ramsey is older, into his sixth decade of writing great horror fiction, so is it really any surprise that the major protagonists and viewpoint characters in An Echo of Children are two concerned grandparents? Campbell presents us with believable characters with all their failing facilities. Thom in particular has mobility issues. Jude is becoming “vague,” and what might that mean for her, and Thom, and the lives they share? Some readers of horror might find this a difficult and frustrating read. It isn’t in-your-face horror, it is subtle, creepy, and unnerving, and as always with Campbell it has great narrative drive, combined with twists and turns and revelations and a masterly descriptive turn of phrase.
What more could you ask for?
Ian Hunter
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