The Bunker Diary is the most controversial recipient of the Carnegie in recent years, at least since Melvin Burgess' Junk was hysterically accused of glamourizing heroin usage in the mid-90's (for those of us who read it, that was obviously far from the case.) The Telegraph, amongst other media outlets, took Brooks to task for the novel's nihilism and unrelenting bleakness. Brooks was unrepentant, insisting that "kids don't need happy endings".
While on principle I agree with Brooks (look how many supposedly light-hearted and fluffy Disney films feature the brutal death of the protagonist's parents for example), what sets The Bunker Diary apart from any other book for its target market that I have read is its complete absence of any form of hope or redemption for any of its characters. I've read Stephen King, Clive Barker, HP Lovecraft and a whole host of other creepy, disturbing and downright terrifying authors for adults, but The Bunker Diary affected me like few other stories I've ever read. Upon finishing it, I sat staring into space for about ten minutes, struggling to process the darkness of what I'd just read, especially its brutal ending.
None of this is intended to point a finger at Brooks' writing - The Bunker Diary is a pacey, powerful, pulsating read. Its characters felt real to me, their interactions, dialogues and personality clashes all utterly believable and succinctly narrated by the hero, Linus, the runaway teenage son of a famous cartoonist who is kidnapped and imprisoned in an underground bunker, along with several others, by the faceless, nameless villain of the story.
Linus diarises the arrival in the bunker of several other seemingly random victims including a 9 year old girl, a recovering heroin addict and a pompous management consultant (whose selfish, narcissistic personality felt squeamishly close to countless office colleagues I've met over the years). Watched at all times by the man upstairs, who appears to have some sort of God complex but whose motivations for carrying out his disturbing actions are never revealed (communicating with the captives only by messages or items sent down in the lift to the bunker), a sequence of increasingly unpleasant and horrifying events unfold - including one heart-pounding sequence involving a vicious Doberman - until we reach the bleak and tragic ending.
Kevin Brooks is clearly an imaginative and skilled writer. I was definitely intrigued to try out more of his work - anything that has the effect that The Bunker Diary had on me is clearly a work of considerable depth and power, but I do question the marketing of the book to teenagers and its subsequent victory of the most prestigious children's book award. All of Brooks' prior success has been in the young adult area so it clearly made sense from a sales standpoint - and I'm sure the ensuing controversy following its Carnegie win didn't do sales any harm either. Personally, though, I'd hesitate to give this book to anyone under the age of 14, and even then would exercise caution. Its themes and imagery are more suited to the adult market, although its appeal here may be limited by its teenage lead character, which puts the book in a no-man's-land in terms of who to target it to - it's a square peg that doesn't fit any of the comfortable round holes of the book-sellers' market, with its niches and genres and segregated departments for adult, teenage and children's fiction.
The Bunker Diary is a great book, no doubt about that. And its ongoing appeal may well hinge on its reputation as a disturbing skin crawler. Whether it was the right choice for a Carnegie winner - or for teenagers in general is likely to be argued - like Junk, The Catcher In The Rye, and many others - for some time to come. Its premise is nightmare inducing precisely because it feels so entirely real. We are in Linus's head, hearts in mouths with terror throughout but curious to find out what horrors lurk next - telling ourselves that surely something like this couldn't happen in real life. Could it?
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