Book Review: "Black Mamba" by William Friend

I normally don't choose a book that has either grief and loss as its underlying extended metaphor because I think it can come off as cliché, especially when the book starts off with that very same sense of loss. Now, we move on to the extended metaphor of loss and grief underlying the book Black Mamba by William Friend - which is nothing like a cliché at all. Instead, it sends you kicking and screaming into the centrepoint of fear, establishing the sense of loss and grief in parts of the story - littered around as you go. This, I have to say, was very clever and really quite intense. The reader is pulled around from childhood fear to adulthood grief, from childhood loss to adulthood trauma. It really is quite something.

Pippa, the mother of a lovely family, has died suddenly. She has left her husband Alfie to take care of the children - twin daughters. He wakes up to find them standing at the foot of his bed telling him that there is someone in their room. It is a man called Black Mamba. As the book goes on, Black Mamba haunts the past and present of the family, making it almost impossible for them to live futures and have peace. There is something deeply strange about Black Mamba as well, as if he represents some sort of unresolved trauma, a story that never finished and an ending that never happened. As the atmosphere burdens the story with creepiness and provokes outright fear - you have to really think about what happens when you turn out the lights and whether anything has made its way into the darkness with you.

Black Mamba engulfs the twins as Alfie gets help from Julia, Pippa's sister. As the girls begin to change, Julia must think straight in order to help them out of this malevolent grasp. It may not be as physical as she thinks but it sure is getting violent, angry and hateful. There is something that Julia cannot quite put her finger on and over the course of the book, from the past and the present, we see these girls grow into something else entirely - freaked out and shaken by their encounter with the evil force of Black Mamba.

When it comes to the adults, there are things they must confront in order to stop the girls being consumed by Black Mamba - as if it is out for the truth about things, the reader sees this family come undone as they try to fight this force once and for all. Throughout the book, the psychological nature of the plot is pounded into the skull of whoever is reading it through the darker natures that take place later on in the text. This is something I found to be a lot like The Babadook, in that there must be some sort of confrontation of truth in order to bring this monster back down to earth.

In conclusion, I liked the ending. I liked the plot and I loved the characters. Though I thought Alfie was somewhat unlikable from time to time, I thought that was the entire point. But, one thing I really enjoyed was the descriptions when Black Mamba was approaching. How everything was dark and strange, things were not what they seemed and things began to change the more he visited. I would love to read more of what this author has to offer and when they release another book, I would love to read it. Black Mamba has proven to be one of the strongest psychological horrors of the year so far.