Book Review: "Gabriel's Moon" by William Boyd

William Boyd wrote perhaps the greatest book I have read in the past few years. It was called The Romantic and is one hell of a book. A beautiful piece of prose, an extensive character-centric novel with a whole host of interesting, amazing and intriguing people involved. Many of William Boyd's novels have some brilliant storylines, wonderful prose included and finally, they have these philosophies that are built upon and change throughout the text, shaping the main character as they go. Gabriel's Moon is no exception. It is a brilliant novel that I could have never given less than a five out of five to.

The novel starts with a prologue in which Gabriel speaks to his mother about whether his father lives on the moon or in heaven. And yet, before we know it, the house is in flames and Gabriel's mother is dead. From then on, Gabriel will be plagued with nightmares of fires - an insomnia that will not go away.

We are thus forced forwards into the 60s in which Gabriel is going to meet the Prime Minister of Congo and write an article about him for the newspaper only to come back to strange phone calls to his home with nobody at the other end. Then, his home is not the same as when he left for the Congo. After this, he sees someone on a plane reading one of his books without recognising him. And finally, his article is redacted even though he got full pay. Once it starts, it does not stop. The news then turns up that the Prime Minister of the Congo has been killed by firing squad - or has he?

When Gabriel's insomnia becomes worse, he starts to try out various things. He goes to a psychoanalyst called Dr Katerina Haas and this is the first time we hear him talk about his father dying in a plane crash and what happened to him and his brother after their mother died. Ultimately, a member of MI6 named Faith Green will turn up at his home and continue to ask him about doing them a favour - a favour which sounds like nothing, but is actually huge.

As we get snippets of the audio recordings made of the psychoanalysis appointments, as we get to see the meetings between Gabriel and his brother and, as we get to see the unusual drop-ins of one Faith Green - we start to paint a portrait of our protagonist in bits and pieces. As we are let into our character's wanderlust, we can draw similarities between Gabriel and the main character of The Romantic, Cashel. The character is traumatised but also, completely likeable - there is something deeply moving about the way in which he wants to solve his problems.

As we start to see these different storylines converge, we also get an insight into who these people are and what they mean to our main character. It becomes more and more surprising by the minute and William Boyd writes them in with perfect timing. As we learn of a medical student who fainted upon seeing a corpse so he became a bookseller and we learn of the fact that our character also had a stint with travel writing which proved fruitful - he will be pulled back into the world of his uncle (the man who looked after him when he was orphaned): art dealing. But, what Gabriel believes is going on and what is actually going on are two different things. This is much, much bigger than any one character in the book.

I won't say what happens in the latter parts of the book because it all adds up to the shocking ending. If there is one thing William Boyd does perfectly it is how the whole book leads on to an ending that might be emotionally horrifying, but is also understandable due to the circumstances. It is a beautiful novel filled with adventure and experience, much like many of William Boyd's novels. It is also a novel featuring every single human emotion physically possible. I was in awe of it from start to finish and yet again, this author has amazed me with his brilliant storytelling.