Book Review

The Tooth Fairy
by Graham Joyce
Tor, 1998

The horror in Graham Joyce's coming-of-age tale is the horror of having too much power as a child--the kind of power that turns your slightest wishes into death and dismemberment. This power is granted to the rather ordinary and fearful member (neither hte smartest nor the strongest) of a trio of friends growing up in small-town England, by his stinky and enigmatic night visitor, the Tooth Fairy. The charm of this British Fantasy Award-winning novel is in his subtle and unsentimental portrait of this supernaturally benighted childhood. As Ellen Datlow writes for Omni, "Joyce immediately hooks his readers from the very first page with a small sharp shock and holds the reader with engaging characters and an air of menace. This tooth fairy is ... mischievous and destructive, representing our own worst aspects."

--Fiona Webster



[Back to Fiona's Fear & Loathing]