'As she unpacks in her new bedroom, Ella is irresistibly drawn to the big old house that she can see out of her window. Surrounded by overgrown gardens, barbed wire fences and 'keep out' signs, it looks derelict. But that night, a light goes on in one of the windows. And the next day she sees a girl in the grounds. Ella is hooked. The house has a story to tell. She is sure of it. Enter Thornhill, Institute for Children, and discover the dark secrets that lie within.But once inside, will you ever leave?'
Thornhill isn't a standard book. It doesn't just follow a single narrative, and it isn't limited to a singular medium either. The book tells two interconnected stories, one is about an orphan girl named Mary who is living in the Thornhill children's home in the 1980's, whose story is told in the form of diary entries; the other is about Ella, a girl who moves into a house behind the remains of Thornhill thirty years later, whose story is told entirely with artwork. Together, these stories make one interesting and haunting narrative tale.
Mary is a girl that's been at Thornhill for a number of years, and is struggling to make friends. She suffers from selective mutism, a complex anxiety disorder. As such, she finds it difficult to talk to any of the other girls in the home, and struggles to communicate well with the staff. Her only real escape from the difficulties she faces when around other people is shutting herself away in her attic room and crafting intricate puppet dolls. Unfortunately, Mary's life is thrown into further chaos when one of her tormentors returns to Thronhill after failing to fit in at her foster home. As Thornhill begins to shut down and the girls are found other places to move to Mary and her bully become more and more isolated with each other, which causes the situation to escalate to dangerous levels.
Ella is a teenage girl who has recently moved into one of the houses behind Thornhill, more than 30 years after Mary's story. As there is no dialogue during these sections the reader is left to piece together her story from the small pieces of information given, but it appears that Ella recently lost her mother, and moved with her father to the new home. Her father is having to work increasingly long hours, which results in Ella alone for long periods. When Ella sees a mysterious girl around the rundown Thornhill she tries to find out more about her, discovering more and more clues as to her identity, and her story.
It's pretty obvious from early on in the book that the mysterious girl that Ella is seeing is Mary, and that there must be something unusual going on here. Despite the obvious answer being that Ella is seeing Mary's ghost Pam Smy manages to create a few interesting curves throughout Mary's story that I began to doubt this conclusion. I started to think that perhaps the girl Ella was seeing wasn't actually Mary, but possibly Mary's bully. Thanks to Mary becoming more and more isolated in her narrative, and building towards a breaking point I began to think perhaps the story would have a twist, and that the bully would turn out to be called Mary too (her name is never given to us), and the reader was being intentionally mislead.
Alas, this is not the case, and it is indeed Mary who is some kind of spirit, but as this was one of the very first things that I thought when reading the book I'm not considering that to really be a spoiler. There are a few twists and turns in the narrative that I'm not going to talk about as then it would spoil the story, but the one thing I will say was that the last few pages actually gave me a little chill; thanks in large part to the artwork.
The art in Thornhill is perhaps one of it's most interesting features, and helps to really make the book stand out. Presented in black and white, these pages help to build upon the gloomy and depressing atmosphere that Mary's narrative creates. The artwork, whilst very beautiful, feels oppressive. It's also amazing just how much Pam Smy is able to convey in these wordless pages, just by the small details that she puts into the background and the way she chooses to depict events. It's not surprising to learn in the back of the book that she's a Senior Lecturer in Illustration, and has a number of qualifications in the subject. She doesn't use illustration to add to the written narrative, but to tell its own story. I've seen a few comics try the same trick, of presenting wordless narratives, and whilst some of these worked most of them didn't feel like anything that was particularly stand out or deserving of high praise. Thornhill, on the other-hand, shows how this technique can really be used to its full.
Thornhill is a hefty book, at more than 500 pages. The hardback copy I read also lent to the book feeling like a weighty, almost intimidating read, especially for the younger reader. However, Mary's diary entries aren't hugely long, and a good percentage of the book is given over to illustrations, meaning that it's not really a long book to read. I managed it in one sitting. But whilst I read it quickly I found myself thinking about it long afterwards. There's something about it that stuck with me way longer than it should have. It told an interesting story, with characters that felt a lot more real and grounded than most young fiction. The artwork elevated the book and made it stand out as something special. Whether you're the intended audience or not, the book is so well crafted that I'm sure that it will grip you and draw you in as well as it did me.
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