The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

An absolutely astonishing book. I loved everything about The Gargoyle - from the appearance of the pages (black to signify that the book has been burned along with the author) to the plot; the use of different timelines; the characters; the short tales told by Marianne Engel within the book. The way everything ties together in life.

I have to admit/warn you that the first few chapters contain some of the most disturbing images that I have had bought to mind by a book and it seemed initially that this was going to be a pretty tough read. Fascinating yes but pretty unpleasant. Due to the vividness of the descriptions you could all but physically feel the pain that the author is going through during the accident and then, even worse, during the treatment. I presume also that the treatments described are all real which gives it all an added edge.

At it's heart though this is actually a story of love and redemption for a modern day self-hating pornographer (we've all been there!!). A man who I have only just realised while writing this is never named (it's amazing how I missed that - guess I was just too engrossed from the outset and then it was never important).

 I would definitely recommend the book but possibly only to a selected audience purely due to the need for a strong stomach at points although if you can get past those there's a lot of heart in there.

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