The Starless Sea is the long awaited second novel of Erin Morgenstern, who hit the literary scene with her 100% blockbuster novel The Night Circus. The Starless Sea is equally fine in its mix of magic and myth, but it didn’t give me the same sleepless nights of page turning awesomeness. Indeed, I almost didn’t cart this 500 pager with me on holiday. I’m glad I did.
Description: Zachary Ezra Rawlins is the son of a fortune teller. As a boy, he discovers a magic door painted on the alley wall. It’s obviously not a magic door, and he’s obviously too old to believe in magic, so he doesn’t try the knob. The thing is, he misses out, at least for a few years.
Zachary is studying video games and narrative in university and strange things happen. He finds a book in the library about the son of a fortune teller who finds a painted door on an alley wall and doesn’t open it. Wait, what! The book is about Zachary. The spin-tingling magic starts shortly after he takes the train, on a lark, to a costume party, where he’s hoping to find a woman wearing a necklace with a bee, a key, and a sword.
Turns out those painted doors open and lead down to the labyrinth land of the Starless Sea.
Favourite quote:
The boy is the son of the fortune-teller. He has reached an age that brings an uncertainty as to whether this is something to be proud of, or even a detail to be divulged, but it remains true.
The Starless Sea
He walks home from school toward an apartment situated above a shop strewn with crystal balls and tarot cards, incense and statues of animal-headed deities and dried sage. (The scent of sage permeates everything, from his bedsheets to his shoelaces.)
Today, as he does every school day, the boy takes a shortcut through an alleyway that loops behind the store, a narrow passage between tall brick walls that are often covered with graffiti and then whitewashed and then graffitied again.
Today, instead of the creatively spelled tags and bubble-lettered profanities, there is a single piece of artwork on the otherwise white bricks.
It is a door.
There are so many magical moments in this novel. I loved the incredible descriptions of the costume balls. Every time there was a short story within the novel, it was a magical little moment.
The Starless Sea is the perfect read for lovers of fairy tales and people who believe in magic doors, fans of The Night Circus or Ron Livingston’s The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Visit https://erinmorgenstern.com/ and look for her instagram. I’m a fan of her cat, Lady Vesper.
And, of course, buy the book.