Book Review: Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout

I read an Advance Uncorrected Proof of this book thanks to HarperVia.

This book was translated from the original Dutch by Laura Watkinson.

The story of how Frankenstein came to be is a famous one. Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and some other guy (John Polidori but I always forget about him) gathered together and spurring each other on to write the best horror story. A teenage girl at the time, Shelley wrote the novel that went on to become so famous, such a classic of psychological horror.

In this novel Anne Eekhout explores the origins of that famous story. Not just the Shelleys and Lord Byron gathered together but the origins of the story in Mary’s mind. The influences – real and created by Eekhout – that came together to inspire Mary to write a story of supernatural life and human horror at what one man might be possible of.

The story has two timelines – 1816 in Cologny where Mary and Percy along with her stepsister Claire have joined their friend Albe (better known as Lord Byron) and his companion John. Mary and Percy are parents to their young son William but Mary is still reeling from the earlier death of her daughter. The relationships between all of them are loose and fluid, with Percy seemingly unbothered by another man’s advances to Mary while Claire moves between Albe and Percy.

In the second timeline, Mary is a younger teenager. The year is 1812 and she has been sent to Dundee to stay with the Baxter family, Mr. Baxter a friend of her father. Mary befriends Isabella Baxter, a strange and intense girl. Isabella is still reeling from her mother’s recent death when a new tragedy befalls the Baxters. The friendship between Mary and Isabella is intense and all-consuming, filled with myth and the darkness of the natural world. As their bond deepens, the line between reality and fantasy becomes harder to distinguish. Danger seems to lurk ever closer to the girls but is what they see truly there?

Death is something that looms over Mary, almost from the moment of her birth when her own mother dies. There is a sense of something watching her always, something malevolent as a presence over her life and perhaps over the lives of her children. It isn’t hard to see how this might manifest in her mind as a story of a man who attempts to create new life out of death but who is horrified by what he has brought forth.

As with almost every dual timeline story I’ve ever read, one timeline was more absorbing than the other. The sense of tension and danger was much stronger in the Dundee sections and the ending felt less uncertain. Partly, perhaps, because it was less based in known history. In the Cologny section, there was a deeper sadness, knowing a few facts about what Mary’s life would be afterward. Aside from her writing, Mary didn’t seem to have much agency over her life and the scenes with the other characters felt repetitive. Overall though, I was impressed by this novel and the way it brought to life its own creations.