Head Full of Mountains by Brent Hayward

Head Full of Mountains was an unexpectedly lyrical novel set at the end of time. Crospinal has spent his life keeping his father company, living in a world of machines and secrets, untouched and heartbroken. As his father slowly dies, the machines die with him, leaving Crospinal alone and uncertain with a task and purpose he cannot understand, and was never explained.

The novel follows his confused, uncertain entrance into a world he was unprepared for and doesn’t understand. There are a growing number of hints that he is not what he thinks he is, and his father was not entirely truthful. The central mysteries of Crospinal and the world are teased out slowly. This is a novel of ideas that never quite spells things out but trusts in the reader’s intelligence. We see the world through at a remove through Crospinal’s eyes. He doesn’t have a frame of reference for the world he finds himself in, and likewise the reader doesn’t have a reference point for his perspective.

Head Full of Mountains is a dark interrogation of what it means to be human, what it means to be broken filtered through an at times meandering story of an equally broken world, one that demands and deserves a great deal of attention.

 

**Received copy from NetGalley for Review

Advertisement