Book Review - Daniel O'Malley's The Rook
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
Published by: Back Bay Books
Publication Date: January 11th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 486 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
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Myfanwy Thomas is a Rook, a high-level operative in The Court of a secret organization called The Checquy. She's hardworking, discreet, reserved, and unflappable. Give her a spreadsheet and she can work wonders. But she has a looming problem. Due to the nature of her job and the type of people and creatures she meets she has learned that she will lose her memory. Permanently. She doesn't know how, she doesn't know why, she doesn't know when, but she knows that soon she will be vulnerable because someone she trusts is going to betray her. Therefore she does what she is best at; she plans. She figures out how to tell the you she will become everything she needs to know in order to survive. Therefore on a rainy night when Myfanwy Thomas is surrounded by corpses in a London park the you that she was saves the you that she is. The new Myfanwy is told by her past self that she has two options before her, disappear into the sunset or find out what happened to her. There are two lock boxes at a bank, each leads to a very different future. The new Myfanwy was going to take the money and run, but she is attacked at the bank. Obviously her body's unknown past is going to haunt her unless she is able to uncover what exactly is going on in The Checquy. Which means she has to go into work on Monday and pass herself off as the Myfanwy they all know and love. Well aside from that one person trying to kill her. At least she hopes it's only one person. What if it's a cabal? But that's just letting her thoughts get away with her, but then again her thoughts all did go away and someone at work did it to her. So she slips on one of numinous bland suits, I mean did she really have this bad of taste? And off to work she goes. She has a sense of who she was from all the letters and the invaluable purple binder left for her, but it's kind of hard to spend all your time looking at your feet and avoiding eye contact when this world is completely new to her. She can control peoples bodies! Her complementary Rook Gestalt is one person in four bodies! Everything is so wonderful and strange. This isn't just a brave new world, this is a brave new Myfanwy, and she's going to live this life she's been given no matter what weirdness stands in her way. She might just have to survive another assassination attempt is all. Or perhaps several.
What I find astounding is given just the premise of secret supernatural organization the vast array of possibilities that authors have come up with. No two are alike and yet they all hold the same DNA, a dollop of the X-Men, a helping of The Avengers, no, the British ones, then a side of The Initiative. Aside from the giant great wallop of snark found here that skeletal framework can apply to so many stories I've known and loved over the years. Yet The Rook stands out. That is because the voice or I should say voices of Myfanwy Thomas are so unique. You love the her that she was, that shy overly precise workaholic, but on her journey to self discovering after erasure you come to love the her that she is becoming. But the sardonic narration isn't the only reason that I am so in the grip of this book's tentacles, it's the deeper implications about identity and trauma. When Myfanwy's powers presented at the age of nine it was traumatic. She injured those she loved and was then taken away from them creating a wound that would never heal as she was shipped off to the Estate and became the property of The Checquy. This event in her life lead to her associating her power with pain and therefore she's never really been able to utilize it to it's full potential. Her and her power aren't one. When that Myfanwy is erased from existence so is all her baggage. All her trauma is washed away in the rain and the new Myfanwy can't believe how easy it is to access her powers. She is able to do feats that the old her could never do. Which can be a bit problematic when you're trying to pretend to be the you you no longer are and start manifesting hugely improved powers. But at least the powers mean more protection. She doesn't have to touch people to control their bodies. She can shut them down and puppet them from across a room. Her powers weren't pain they were protection but the old her could never separate that in her mind. Which makes me wonder, what could we be without our past traumas? So much of therapy is about letting go, finding a way to reach our full potential. While losing your memory is a drastic way to lose your inhibitions, there's something so empowering reading Myfanwy's story. While we might not have had to do battle with cubes of flesh or prophetic ducks, we all know what it's like to be holding yourself back. To be unable to cope with moving forward. This is a cathartic read, a call to arms to heal the trauma and embrace the Myfanwy in us all by daring to go out in that red dress.
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