“For me, all horror fiction is about death—our dealing with it, fear of it, contemplation of it.” So says Tim Lebbon, horror and dark fantasy writer, and author of The Thief of Broken Toys. Lebbon isn’t afraid to confront the most emotionally and spiritually painful of human experiences. “I’ve written lots of stories about grief and loss, but only experienced true grief four years ago when my mother died,” he says. “Since then I’ve felt I can write about it with a clearer understanding of what it entails, and the complex forms grief can sometimes take. The most powerful stories I’ve written, I think, are about loss.”
Loss is the driving force in The Thief of Broken Toys, his most recent novella, published by Toronto’s ChiZine Press. The story focuses on the struggles of the protagonist, Ray, as he tries desperately to come to terms with the sudden death of his young son, Toby, from a rare illness, and the subsequent collapse of his marriage. A box of broken toys under Toby’s old bed becomes an excruciating reminder of all the promises Ray made to Toby and never kept. But one night, as he walks home along a windswept cliff, near the Cornish fishing village where he lives, he meets a mysterious old man—an old man who can apparently mend all the toys that Ray never did. As Ray becomes increasingly intrigued, however, it becomes clear that the ability to make toys as good as new is only one aspect of the old man’s powers.
Timeless and haunting in its themes, The Thief of Broken Toys is reminiscent of the dark side of folk literature; at times, it almost seems like a modern-day reverse Faustian tale, in which the central character doesn’t lust after wealth or fame, but rather, seeks only to mitigate the pain that comes from what he has already lost. Lebbon is quick to admit his fascination with these kinds of tales. “I guess I’m more interested in the psychology behind such stories rather than the stories themselves—our need for such stories to be told and passed down the years,” he says. “These range from classic folk tales…to the Bible, and they’re part of a rich history that feeds our imaginations as much today as they did hundreds, or thousands of years ago. Their sources might be very different—some were always fiction, some came about as part of our need for understanding. But we have always been storytellers, and imagination is our greatest gift.”
Lebbon’s appreciation for a good story—especially a good horror story—started relatively young. “From the age of ten I was reading adult horror,” he notes. “I spent years devouring James Herbert and Stephen King books, and it wasn’t until my mid-teens—pretty late really—that I realized there was a whole other world out there, too. King is still one of my favourites, but now I read widely across all genres, both fiction and non-fiction.” He cites King’s “tenacity and refusal to compromise” as a distinct influence on his own writing. “But if I had to mention one writer who might stand as a role model, it’s Dan Simmons,” he says. “He writes across genres, from horror to crime, science fiction to historical fiction. He’s consistently brilliant. My work doesn’t tend to stretch so far, but I have ideas…”
Lebbon also mentions Welsh author Arthur Machen’s complex use of landscape as an inspiration—Lebbon himself has made his home in Monmouthshire, Wales, for over a decade. He often makes use of the local landscape in his writing, and although The Thief of Broken Toys is set in the south-west of England, in Cornwall rather than Wales, the land is as much a character as Ray, the old man, and even Toby. The area is attractive and idyllic by day, but brooding and potentially treacherous at night, with cliffs and rocks ready to destroy all but the most careful of those who attempt to navigate them. The sea is a consistent, ever-changing presence that provides undertones of instability and flux.
“Landscape can be vital to a good horror story,” observes Lebbon. “I’ve often included it as an integral part of the story, and in this case, the tale was set in a Cornish fishing village because much of the seed of the idea came to me whilst visiting Polperro [a small village port on the south coast of England]. The little hut on the cliff top, that’s there. Haven’t seen an old guy up there, though,” he jokes.
He also feels that there’s a distinct advantage to a writer of setting a story in a specific landscape. “I think having a definite idea of the setting in your mind whilst writing can free up concentration to devote elsewhere to the story. I’ve just written a huge apocalyptic novel, set partly in an underground complex… I had to draw layouts and maps to make sense of things when I was revising, and that took a lot of time.” The result—in The Thief of Broken Toys in particular—is a landscape that Lebbon describes as “a presence.” “It’s timeless, ambivalent, haunted,” he says. “I’m lucky enough to live in a beautiful part of the world, but I’ve undone its beauty more than once in my fiction.”
Lebbon is a prolific author, with over thirty books published in Canada, the US, and the UK. He has written several novels and short story collections, but he especially likes the novella form. “I think they’re the perfect form for a horror story, not only for the reader but the writer as well,” he explains. “It’s difficult to build a sense of unease or menace and carry it through an entire novel, but with a novella you can do that. There’s also the more basic advantage of being able to write them quicker—I can write a novella in a couple of weeks, and every completed project gives me a sense of huge satisfaction.”
He also mentions the opportunities that the form gives the writer for experimentation. “With Thief I wanted to try something a little different style-wise,” he says, and points out that a number of sections of the book are written in the second person, which adds to the menace of the landscape and the mystery surrounding the old man on the cliffs. “I’m not aware of any real influences for this, other than respecting writers—such as Simmons—who aren’t afraid to try something new,” he says. “[The book] emerged with something of a dark fairytale feel, and I’m delighted with that.”
And where, for Lebbon, does the appeal of the dark side of literature lie? “[Th]at’s something I can never definitively analyse,” he says. “I love reading it, and much of what I write tends to be regarded as horror. As my dear old mum would have said, it was just the way she put my hat on.”
—Claire Horsnell
A great book. I just finished it, and its overwhelming atmosphere of loss and melancholy really lingers.
Hi, I also like the Madagaskar movies, great animation!