Book Review: “The Curator” by Owen King
The Fork in the Road
It’s hard to write a review of an Owen King novel without mentioning his famous lineage: his mother Tabitha, in particular, is a very famous author of novels and needs no further introduction. King’s brother, Joe Hill, is an author of comic books and genre novels and is almost as equally well-known. His father is also a writer but is lesser known and has been lately writing dime-store crime novels of sorts that have mostly flown under the radar. His name is Stephen if it matters, and it probably shouldn’t be since he’s a more obscure author. (OK, before anyone throws up their hands and cries foul, yes, I’m being facetious here.) So, you can say that Owen King has talent based on the family that surrounds him, and The Curator, his latest novel, clearly illustrates that he is a man of great imagination. The book seems to be an allegory for the January 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington, D.C., and, as such, is probably going to be best appreciated by those who live in the United States. Readers elsewhere may be a little bit baffled for this is a novel about revolution and a changed land, and what happens when we fail to recognize the past. I think that only Americans will be able to truly appreciate what King’s trying to say by the novel’s end — and, to that end (no pun intended), I must admit that this book might not be everyone’s kettle of fish as it is quite bizarre and surreal, and probably is best categorized as being in the New Weird genre.
The story takes place in a city only known as “The Fairest.” It is a city that is on the precipice of outright war as there has been a change in government. The Curator mostly focuses on the story of a woman named D, or Dora, who wants to find out what happened to her brother Ambrose after he died of cholera. For that reason, she seeks to take over control of The Museum of Psykical Research, where Ambrose worked when D was a child. However, she discovers that the museum has burned to the ground, and is, instead, given control — by her lover and a member of the revolution named Robert Barnes — of the neighboring National Museum of the Worker. Meanwhile, a teenage street thief that D befriends named Ike falls in love with her and has his sights on taking her hand in marriage. Calamity ensues, and there are additional bits about magic, cats and pickled oysters to be had. As such, this is a novel that is less about having a linear plot and one that is meant to dazzle with unconventional scenes of a world on the cusp of a major uprising.
I am of two minds about this novel. As much as I like weird fiction, I found the book to be sometimes hard to follow and get invested in — but that may be because of my nationality as a Canadian and perhaps some of the allusions to the Trump presidency flew over my head. (This goes back to my comment that you might have to be an American to understand what’s going on here.) However, I can be kind and say that I appreciate that King isn’t just sitting on his laurels — he’s reinventing himself. His debut novel, Double Feature, was a more straight-up literary endeavour, and Sleeping Beauties, the novel he co-wrote with his father, was of course more situated in the horror genre. Thus, The Curator is a fantasy novel, so one can be amazed by the fact that King isn’t pigeonholing himself into one type of book that he writes. On the other hand, if you’re churlish, you may point out that that prevents him from being a master of the types of genres he writes about or has consistency in his career. I’m not sure if that’s the case. At the very least, you can admire the fact that King is writing a little differently from others in his family and isn’t just mining the horror genre exclusively to cash in on his famous surname. One truly gets the sense that he’s writing the books that he wants to write, so kudos to him for that.
I found that The Curator shared some interesting commonalities with Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris trilogy. Both are works of historical fiction with Baroque feels to them, and both have urban settings that are a little bit filthy. Therefore, if you’re up for a lot of reading (as the VanderMeer books total some 1,000 pages alone), it might be interesting to read both works at the same time. However, I think The Curator is a work of its own and says something more about the current political climate of the United States. This is not for every taste, of course, and it is a novel that you’re either going to love or you’re going to loathe. This is what I am referring to in this review’s subheading: you can easily be of conflicted emotion around this work and find yourself going down the road of love or going down the road of hate. However, I think one needs to come to The Curator with a bit of perspective — ignoring the political content of the book for a moment. If you love reading and want to try something with a distinctive flavour, then you’re probably going to enjoy reading this book. If you look at the world through a lens of hate, you might not like this book and may easily come to find faults with it. Thus, in the end, it is as the saying goes: your mileage is probably going to vary here. Still, those who are tired of the same old fantasy novels of swords and sorcery will likely find something to enjoy in The Curator. If many readers take that position, it may very well be that Owen King may find himself on an equal footing when it comes to the popularity of his books compared to those written by more famous members of his distinguished and creative family. At the very least, The Curator is a distinctly different novel from what you may have read before. Nothing more perhaps needs to be said.
Owen King’s The Curator will be published by Scribner on March 7, 2023.
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