Review: The Land of Laughs

The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a great premise, one that’s hard to talk about without a (view spoiler)[

Thomas Abbey is the son of a one-time famous movie star, and that’s made him the product of stories that others tell about him. People are constantly asking him what his father was like and how it felt to be his son. As such, he has a hard time defining himself – telling his own story, if you will.

The exception to that came in his passion for work of the C.S. Lewis-like writer, Marshall France. Reading those books entrances him, and he feels fully himself when he’s immersed in the writing. Early on, he has a meet-cute with a fellow fanatic, and the two of them embark on a mission to try to write the definitive biography of France. To do that, they relocate to the small town where he lived and where his daughter still lives.

Eventually – and here’s where the real spoiler comes in – we learn a strange and beguiling truth about the town. Other than Anna and a man named Richard, everyone there is a living, breathing person…but also the fictional creation of France. That is, sometime after France wrote his early best-selling books, he discovered that the things he wrote about the town began to happen. When he wrote of births, the kids were born, and the deaths he described happened just as he described them. When he decided he didn’t like a couple he’d invented, he had them transform into Bull Terriers and become beloved pets.

What’s compelling in all that is the way the characters appreciate living in a universe that’s all been written for them. They don’t fear random death. Since they’ve all read what France wrote about them, they know when they will die and how. Without that surprise, they don’t have the existential dread of the rest of us. They know the end of the story someone else has written for them, so they can live and appreciate every moment they have.

In recent months, though, something has changed. People are dying outside their prescribed narrative, and it’s profoundly unsettling. France had warned them it might happen after he died, but now they’re on the brink of having to confront the uncertainty of real mortal lives.

But the even deeper spoiler comes toward the end when we learn why Anna has given Thomas permission to write the book. France has warned his creations that, in such an event, they will need to find someone who has something of his writerly gift – someone who can write his biography in such a way that he will return as a character that biographer has written.

I loved – really loved – the clever conclusion, which, while taking place in the final two pages, is the biggest spoiler of the, all. Thomas has escaped the town (they have killed his girlfriend Saxony) and, on the run from Richard who’s been assigned to kill him, he has written his own book: a biography of his father.

Then, just as Richard has cornered him with gun drawn, Thomas’s father – brought back to life by the biography – distracts Richard long enough for Thomas to pull his own gun.

I’m retelling it too quickly to give the full effect, but it’s satisfyingly clever and worth hanging onto this until the final pages. (hide spoiler)]

All of that is a great and creepy premise, and it’s lingered for me as a tightly and originally plotted story. Very original.

There are a few dated references here that take away from the edginess of it all – it’s a product of the pop culture of its moment rather than a timeless story. And there are stretches where the narrative seems to drag more than necessary. (Including, for instance, a mostly gratuitous first chapter.) So, I can’t quite give it the full five-star rating.

But this is definitely a pleasure to read, and I have Carroll on my list of writers to come back to.


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