The Ocean at the End of the Lane

by Neil Gaiman

Paperback, 181 pages

Published April 7, 2014 by William Morrow.

ISBN:: 9780062255662

(5 reviews)

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

23 editions

Dan Jones reviewed The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman

Very typical Neil Gaman.

5 stars

As I was reading this novel, I was pretty sure that the narrator was actually a version of @neilhimself@mastodon.social. The acknowledgement seems to acknowledge this.

The story follows a man in his forties, remembering a fantastic event from his childhood. Most of the novel follows this story, with the main character being a bookish seven year old boy with few friends, who gets trapped in a fight with beings from another reality.

A lot of the story is a commentary on memory, and for some time while reading, I thought that perhaps the entire fantasy story was a memory concocted by the narrator to cope with the shock of discovering his father's infidelity.

It's a quick read and very enjoyable. It would be appropriate for older children, but just as enjoyable for adults.

David Bremner reviewed The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman

Short and mostly sweet

4 stars

I guess it is long for a novella, but short for a novel. That means there is not a lot of room to build up characters. The protagonist is a bookish but uncomplicated boy but e.g. the parents are mostly ciphers.

It's an engaging story, I finished it in a few sessions, something I don't do very often these days. It feel very English, and very Rural, which isn't what I remember of Gaiman. It doesn't really break any new ground, but it well crafted, and the setting is more completely related than the characters.

It does have some scenes that would probably give sensitive souls (and children) nightmares.