Readers who open the cover of Peter Cameron’s latest novel, WHAT HAPPENS AT NIGHT (2020; 320 pp.) and begin reading most likely, already too absorbed by what they are reading, will not hear the creaking of the door closing behind them as they enter a surreal, nightmarish world filled with shadows, an incredible setting, and amazingly unique characters. A husband and his wife (they are never named) travel for days to “a place at the edge of the world, in the far north,” Furuhjalli, to stay at the once grand, now mostly dilapidated Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel. They are in the town to adopt a baby—at St. Barnabas, the only orphanage to willing entrust the couple with a baby because the woman is suffering stage four cancer and is dying. From the moment they step off the train, their lives begin to change forever.
In a blurb for the novel, esteemed veteran author Edmund White astutely references the Kafka-like quality of WHAT HAPPENS AT NIGHT. Cameron’s writing is absolutely stunning. It brings to life evocative images of gloomy, faded glories and bleak surroundings readers will not only see before their eyes, but will have readers having other senses come alive as well: the smells and taste of diverse and often substandard foods and unusual drinks, odors of unused rooms and decay, the texture of old heavy fur coats and peoples’ flesh, etc. The author’s frequent and inventive use of simile is masterful and the dialogue he employs for his characters (written without any quotation marks) is not only realistic, but adds incredible insight into their thinking and psychology. Every word in the novel and every character’s action appears carefully chosen to add depth, meaning, and reality to what is otherwise a nightmare, “horrible world” as the man and woman strive to fulfill their goal of obtaining a child against almost impossible odds.
Throughout the novel Cameron explores the powerful impact a person’s desires can have upon them and those around them and the importance of relationships which can be fragile and far from stable, changing with the slightest mood, comment, or circumstance. He also delves into the importance of trust. Cameron tackles sexuality, religious belief (or lack thereof), faith, and the values his characters hold which makes such a vital difference in their lives. All of these qualities and more are reflected not just in the man and woman, but in the minor characters as well who, ironically, are given names.
Certainly, the most intricate and impactful of Cameron’s minor characters is Livia Pinheiro-Rima, “…probably in her seventies… there was something overtly and disconcertingly sexual about her.” Her life has brought her a vast number of experiences: working as a circus performer, as an actress, and now playing piano “and singing for her supper” in the hotel bar to a handful of people who really don’t listen to her. Her life, however, has given her remarkable knowledge and intuitiveness about others. She can linger in the shadows or be a commanding presence and always demands to be treated as a lady. Livia forms a bond with the man and plays a pivotal role in the story on more than one occasion.
The usually silent and distant bartender, Lárus, appears a man of servitude, jumping to immediately fulfill every demand made of him by the clientele. Ironically, “the man realized of everyone, he loved Lárus the most. Perhaps because he was the one most impossible, most resistant, to love.” Brother Emmanuel de Mézarnou is a youngish, tall, intense faith healer, or as he prefers to be called, an angekok. Seemingly sage and committed to helping others, there is an aura of the rigid, mysteriousness, and perhaps ominousness which surrounds him. Doctor Ludjekins, head of the St. Barnabus Orphanage, is an inflexible man who doesn’t allow sentiment to sway protocol or state law. The overweight businessman, Henk Bosma, who claims to be a middleman between the Russians and Finns on oil deals, sits lurking in the hotel, ever watching, like a pernicious spider awaiting prey.
In many ways the Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel, with its bar and restaurant is a character unto itself in the novel, setting a persistent tone and atmosphere to the novel, its characters, and events.
To say WHAT HAPPENS AT NIGHT is a mesmerizing novel hardly does it justice and nothing prepares the reader for the final series of unorthodox events culminating in a spell-binding, haunting, and even heart-rending conclusion. WHAT HAPPENS AT NIGHT is one of those reading experiences which is likely to cling to the reader’s mind for days to come.
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Top reviews from other countries
K.C. Brock
A strange story with strange characters. Not my favorite Peter Cameron novel but I'm glad I read it.
Reviewed in Canada on June 8, 2022
Prudence Clarke
Weird and quirky
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2022