Review:
This book is structured as a reconstruction of the events leading up to sports writer Harper's sister's disappearance. Harper's sister, Willow, was grieving after the death of her young son when she discovered the words "Clifford Island" written in his room. Wanting desperately to know what sort of connection Clifford Island had to her son, Willow takes a job as the island's new youth ministries director and starts to dig into the island's mysteries. It's a strange place: it has hardly any internet presence, so it's difficult to find out anything about it. The whole island seems to be stuck in the mid-to-early '90s - teens wear slap bracelets, no one has a cell phone, no one has newer cars, etc. People even seem to be weirdly fixated on the OJ Simpson car chase, watching it every day as though it were breaking news.
The story alternates between scenes leading up to Willow's disappearance, as she investigates what makes this island tick and at the same time finds herself strangely at home in this bizarre place, and scenes in which Harper talks to folks on the island in an effort to figure out what happened to his sister. Both Willow and Harper find an ally in Lily, a Clifford Island teenager who's frustrated with the island's rules and doesn't believe in the reasons behind them.
I'll start by saying that the structure Juliano chose for this book is a bit weird and unnecessary - it puts readers in the position of believing that Harper would write out third person reconstructions of Willow, Lily, and other Clifford townspeople's experiences. It was a bit much for me, and didn't really add anything to the story. As best as possible, I had to try to ignore the voice in my head that constantly asked "how would Harper know this stuff?"
That aside, the premise was interesting, and I was intrigued by the mystery of Clifford Island. From Lily's perspective, the island was something of a cult, with weird rules more grounded in superstition than anything. Bits and pieces of what was going on were revealed, enough for me to have a few theories. Pastor Rita Higgins was clearly at the center of whatever it was - she seemed to know everything that was going on, and people listened to her.
I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but one of the things that comes up is the question of what kind of horror we're dealing with in this book. Is this a cult? Is this a ghost story? Do Willow's childhood nightmares of the twisted monster who told her "Run to your mother" have anything to do with what's going on? Or is it something else?
Unfortunately, the story took a little longer to get where it was going than I would have liked. I'm glad I stuck with it, since the ending turned out to be pretty good, with a few unexpected revelations. Still, I wish parts had dragged a bit less - for a while, it felt like I was reading something that would have been much more effective as a short story (which, according to the acknowledgments, is what this started off as).
As I was reading, I kept being reminded of several TV shows, namely Midnight Mass (Pastor Rita and isolated island weirdness) and the first season of Channel Zero (Willow's childhood nightmare). I could see this getting adapted into a similar series.
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