reviewed by John Murphy

Neverwhere is an entertaining dark fantasy from celebrated writer, Neil Gaiman. The wild and whirling world he creates from the material of urban London — where unsuspecting folks can fall “between the cracks” and end up in the surreal London Below — owes a debt to GK Chesterton’s delightful and outlandish The Man Who Was Thursday, another joyous flight of singularly British imagination.

The story is fable-like in its simplicity. Richard Mayhew leads a normal life: 9-5 job, fiancé, apartment, predictable routine. The most whimsy his life affords is the colorful collection of trolls on his desk at work. His boring existence is upended when he decides to help an elfin-looking girl he finds bleeding on a sidewalk. The girl is named Door, an orphan from London Below.

As in Susanna Clarke’s masterpiece, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Gaiman offers a vision of London as an Old World enmeshed with Other Worlds – mirrors and doors and subways can be passageways to dark, unknowable places. “Door” is just that – a girl gifted with the ability to open doors to faraway landscapes. Her talent is singular, and she’s pursued by a relentless pair of assassins, the Dickensian duo of Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, who require her talent for a nefarious employer. Richard decides to help protect her from her pursuers, and to aid her in her quest to avenge the murder of her family.

Gaiman’s characters are memorable – I especially enjoyed the condescending Marquis de Carabas, a man who does not suffer fools gladly. Richard is a likable but often hapless hero. Naturally, he’s a character slowly coming to terms with the sights and wonders around him, but for a good deal of the story he does little besides offer variations of surprise and bewilderment. This is more an observation than a complaint, since Gaiman wants his reader to see Richard’s character arc from befuddled businessman to worthy hero.

Gaiman is especially good at evoking atmosphere; his rich descriptions weave a magnificent tapestry of surface textures. He has a lot of fun with London landmarks, offering parallel takes on the British Museum, the Old Bailey, Earl’s Court, and so on. In this sense, it is no wonder that Gaiman hailed Clarke’s debut as the best fantasy written in the last seventy years – their sensibilities accord as devout Anglophiles fascinated by the intersection of reality and imagination.

Though not in the same league as Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Neverwhere is nonetheless a diverting journey, and fans of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis should especially appreciate Gaiman’s imaginative powers.