TITLE: Ormeshadow
AUTHOR: Priya Sharma
176 pages, Tor.com, ISBN 9781250241443 (softcover)
DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Burning with resentment and intrigue, this fantastical family drama invites readers to dig up the secrets of the Belman family, and wonder whether myths and legends are real enough to answer for a history of sin.
Uprooted from Bath by his father's failures, Gideon Belman finds himself stranded on Ormeshadow farm, an ancient place of chalk and ash and shadow. The land crests the Orme, a buried, sleeping dragon that dreams resentment, jealousy, estrangement, death. Or so the folklore says. Growing up in a house that hates him, Gideon finds his only comforts in the land. Gideon will live or die by the Orme, as all his family has.
MY RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
MY THOUGHTS: Note: I received an electronic Advance Review Copy of this book from the good people at Tor.com Publishing.
Priya Sharma’s Ormeshadow is of that particular type of fantasy wherein the reader wonders if the fantasy aspect actually exists at all or is completely in the characters’ minds. It’s hard to walk that “is it real or isn’t it” line without confirming one way or the other and still satisfy the reader; Priya Sharma pulls it off magnificently, putting me often in mind of one of my favorite fantasy novels (and possibly one of my favorite novels of any genre), Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman’s The Fall of the Kings. Even after two re-readings of Ormeshadow, I find myself happily vacillating as to whether the fantasy element, especially the story’s denouement, is real or the product of the main character’s fevered and wishing mind.
There is no doubt in my mind that main character Gideon Belman truly believes his father John’s stories of how the Orme Valley was formed and what is hidden in the mountain’s depths. His belief, forged in the fire of being young and impressionable, sees him through family tensions and tragedies as he grows up and has immense value in that alone. But many areas of the world have legends of being created by mythical creatures the modern world has no record of every existing, and I think Sharma makes it very clear that no-one else in the story aside from Gideon, John, and one other minor character, believe that dragons ever existed. Gideon’s mother, uncle, and aunt all seem to think John less of a man for telling such stories no matter how hard he works upon his return to the family farm, and Gideon’s cousins seem to have had all sense of wonder in childhood whimsy driven out of them by their stern and often drunken father. Only one or two locals seem to be even passingly aware of the legends John works so hard to keep alive for his son. (The adults’ attitude that a storyteller is less worthy of respect than those who do physical labor is prevalent in our own world. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “oh, you’re a writer? So what do you really do to make money?”)
There is one part of the legend that Gideon’s uncle Thomas seems to believe, although he only speaks of it when drunk, and even then obliquely: that great wealth is hidden somewhere in the Orme, and specifically part of the family land bequeathed to Gideon, regardless of how it got there (magical dragon or simply humans skilled at burying things). It’s also clear Thomas thinks Gideon will someday find that treasure. This doesn’t make him treat Gideon any kinder, and in fact makes him even more abusive.
The family dynamic overall is an unhappy and violent one, and so parts of this novella will be difficult for some readers. How Gideon stays so innocent, so caring, in the midst of so much faithlessness, resentment, and anger is a testament to either the positivity instilled by his father or the boy’s own obliviousness to what’s going on around him. As with the overall fantasy elements, Sharma seems to leave it up to the reader as to which option is the more accurate. Ultimately, I came away from the story loving and feeling bad for Gideon and for John, liking one of two of the supporting characters – particularly those introduced in the second half of the story – and disliking/borderline hating the rest of Gideon’s family.
Although Gideon is the focus of the story, I couldn’t help but notice how the author works in a very real assessment of the treatment of women in pre-industrial times. Mistreatment of Gideon’s mother by her husband’s former employer (the exact nature of which is hinted at but never fully explicated) leads to the family’s return from Bath to the farm of John’s birth and childhood, where Clare effectively becomes a weapon between John and his brother Thomas, who fears that John’s return brings problems. There is clearly no love lost between Clare and Thomas’ wife Maud, whose role has been mostly one of brood-mare and servant even before John and his family arrival. When Gideon and his cousin attend school, Gideon cannot help but notice the uncomfortable extra attention the schoolmaster gives certain girls, like the already-downtrodden Eliza Dorcas.
There is about the book a sense of claustrophobia, a sense that Gideon’s world was vaster in the confines of the city of Bath than it is in the rural Orme. Sharma’s descriptions of the hills and valleys are beautiful, especially whenever John relates new aspects of the dragon legend. But those bucolic descriptions are the exception to the rest of the story, brief moments in which Gideon, and the reader, can gulp fresh air and feel relaxed before the claustrophobia and tension of farm and school return.
Weather also plays a part in these alternating feelings of claustrophobia and airiness. Two scenes in particular are so intense that the terror of the events almost becomes beautiful. These second of these scenes is also the closest the author ever comes to telling us whether the dragon legend, and thus the fantasy aspect of the story, is true or not.
Ormeshadow leaves a lot up to the reader to decide, from the truth of the fantasy to what really happened in Bath that precipitate John’s return to his childhood home. And I think that’s what will make this book unforgettable and ultimately re-readable.