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AMBERVILLE by Tim Davys

AMBERVILLE

by Tim Davys

Pub Date: Feb. 24th, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-162512-1
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

This debut novel from pseudonymous Swedish author Davys, foreign rights to which have sold in more than 20 countries, is a noirish allegory starring a pair of twin teddy bears. It was originally published in Sweden in 2007.

The story is set in Mollisan Town, a metropolis that’s ordinary in every respect except for the fact that it’s populated entirely by stuffed animals. That makes for an odd social order. Couples wishing for a child submit a request to the Cub List, and their little bundle of fabric and stuffing arrives via a green pickup, while some adults tend to strangely disappear via red pickups. The novel turns on the latter detail. Eric Bear, a former gangster settled down with his wife, Emma Rabbit, is visited by his old boss, Nicholas Dove, who believes he’s on the Death List, meaning a red pickup is due to arrive soon. Eric is asked to discover the keeper of the list and expunge Dove’s name from it, lest his wife, Emma Rabbit, be destroyed. That setup suggests a spoof of hard-boiled crime fiction, but while Bear’s associates seem drawn straight from the heist-film playbook (an immoral gazelle, a devious snake, etc.), Davys is working more existential turf. Eric’s twin, Teddy, is the polar opposite of his brother, deeply obsessed with the nature of good and evil, and the novel is interspersed with his musings on the nature of relationships, particularly when it comes to family and religion. Davys ensures that Teddy’s ruminations are well integrated to the plot, and as Eric gets ever closer to discovering the true nature of the Death List, the author ponders the big questions of who created us and who keeps order in a complex society. Why a stuffed animal is a useful metaphor for getting at philosophical concerns is never entirely clear—Davys doesn’t make much of the inherent stuffed-animal-ness of his characters, which drink, eat, drive and generally live much as humans do. Still, the romantic triangle among Eric, Teddy and Emma is engagingly drawn, and never for a moment does the story feel like kids stuff.

An appealingly unique world, cut from some interesting cloth.