Let's Talk Books

I was a little worried when my request for The Listeners was approved, because I love Maggie’s work so much, but as a rule I don’t consume anything set around WWII: I was concerned that I had boxed myself into a disappointment. I am happy to report this was an unfounded concern. Maggie Stiefvater has been one of my favourite authors since teenagehood, when her werewolf series, The Wolves of Mercy Falls, captured my imagination. I have read, since then, almost everything she has published, and every new book has convinced me of her skill, but more than that, of the ineffable sense of person-ness she is capable of putting to page, it is almost magic. The Raven Cycle, an utter stand out, remains my benchmark for humanity played out on pages, for the melding of the real and unreal, but The Listeners might give TRC a run for its money.

The Listeners is delightful and compelling, in her interview with The Bookseller Maggie referred to this not as fantasy, or historical fiction, but ‘Wonder’ a new genre she was pioneering, and I understand now what she meant. This is unlike anything you have read before, because it is fantasy, and reality. It is class struggles. It is a WWII narrative. It is a romance, and a family drama, and rumination on parenthood and childhood. It is horror, without the fear, and literary without the pretension, and historical fiction without the familiar, and a tale of people without banality. It is almost spy fiction, and almost romance fiction, and almost fantasy fiction. It is speculative, but it is also deeply, unerringly real.

I fell into this, dove into the sweetwater and let it close over my head. It was a fever dream. Consuming. Brilliant. Truly exceptional.

To quote Maggie herself: Stiefvater, ‘You incredible creature.’

5 stars.