It’s been a long time coming (as it is with most of these reviews, to be honest) but I’m finally reviewing one of my all-time favourite books! I first read this one during my college days and I still remember the details as if it were the last book I finished reading. This book is the kind that will end up seared into your memory.

Iain Banks’ twisted contemporary Gothic novel is told from the perspective of Frank Cauldhame. He is an equally twisted sixteen-year-old who has many secrets. Some of which Frank is not even aware of and are revealed to him and the reader at the very end of the narrative. There are secrets that are revealed earlier on and that includes where Eric, Frank’s insane older brother, is really escaping from. Arguably more importantly, though, we learn very early on that the protagonist has killed three people.  (I promise this isn't a spoiler, it's the opening of the synopsis) They were all relatives, all children, and all when he himself was a young child.

Frank is one of the many well crafted and developed characters found in Banks’ novel. Frank’s own father, without giving too much away, is even described as though he’s a modern-day Victor Frankenstein. Banks not only shows his audience that he can create characters that are severely unhinged through graphic descriptions of the disturbing acts they carry out, but he also has the ability to make the audience feel sympathy for these characters. One of the ways Banks achieves this is by crafting even more horrifying situations that become the origin stories of these mentally unstable characters.

Banks also shows off his ability to describe many intricate and significant details within his novel in the same gruesome and vivid tone without having to lose its pacing. What is particularly spectacular is his construction of Frank’s wasp factory which we realise is a significant detail in and of itself. It’s described as a chamber created from an old clock in which Frank has transformed into a wasp factory in order to be able to kill wasps in twelve unique and vile ways. Frank does this as he believes whichever death each wasp ‘chooses’ translates to something that will happen in the future. There are also twelve named chapters in the novel which I’m sure is a deliberate and clever detail that parallels the twelve sections of the clock.

It’s a clever contemporary Gothic novel filled with the classic tropes, dark humour and horrifyingly detailed gore interwoven with some light humorous moments and beautiful descriptions of the Scotland scenery. So, if you enjoy reading books that simultaneously make you want to tear your eyes away from the page but also keep reading (that’s likely only more than a handful of readers, I know) then Banks’ novel The Wasp Factory should be moved to the top of your reading list.

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