Hmm... Nah, I'm not sure about this. On paper, it's a fine idea: Churchill described his depressive tendency as a black dog, so Rebecca Hunt has brought that dog to life and made it a character in a book in which he visits both Churchill and the protagonist, Esther. Esther is lucky enough to be given personal advice by Churchill, and she has friends around her, and with their help she has the strength to reject the dog. This seems like an idea with legs. Maybe even four legs. I like the idea of a book that acknowledges that, to an extent, we can choose whether or not to surrender to our depressive tendencies. This feels true and yet we're often told to see depression as an unstoppable illness that people have to just surrender to. So I should like this, right?
But it just doesn't quite deliver. I'm not sure why. I think maybe she has gone too far in trying to make the book light-hearted. OK, I can understand why she'd want to do that, but in the process, itfeels like it's trivialising depression. The dog is convincing at first, as Mr Chartwell, offering a faustian bargain to his new landlady, but soon he has changed his name to "Black Pat" which is a stupid name, not at all intimidating. He chews her handbag, breaks stuff, makes noises, annoys everyone, but he doesn't sap the vitality or the willpower out of his victims. Nothing really dark ever happens. He just annoys the shit out of everyone. In the last few pages, his wheedling attempts to convince her to accept him into her life permanently approach the kind of thing I would have expected, but it didn't mesh with anything that had gone before, and the stakes felt very low indeed. So she just says goodbye and off he pops. It's too easy.
I just didn't really feel like the book was as good as it should have been.