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A review by markhoh
The Beresford by Will Carver
5.0
What do you want?
2022 has really started with a bang with Will Carver’s standalone novel ‘The Beresford’. Deliciously and darkly disturbing, Carver serves up a diet of fantastic story telling while also making provocative statements about the human experience, both collective and otherwise. It really is the most unique writing style and Carver is fast becoming one of my favourite authors because of his uncanny ability to write a psychological thriller that is kind of really psychological.
Will Carver intersperses his novel with standalone chapters, each entitled, ‘What do you want?’, dissecting a number of ways that this question is responded to. It seems like such a simple question that surely is simple to answer. But even as I type these words I’m kind of in a state of paralysis over how I answer that question or what it is that I actually want. As Carver highlights, I could respond by saying what I don’t want, a common enough response, but one that doesn’t answer the question.
So, as per usual, Will Carver has set me on some sort of existential exploration, requiring reflection, introspection and the need to call a spade a spade. Carver doesn’t pull any punches in his writing and The Beresford attests to that on every page.
The Beresford is a set of apartments, an old world, grand building where the rent is unbelievably cheap but it would seem that to live there is costly. The apartment building is split into two levels with two separate entrances. The landlady and owner, Mrs May lives on the ground floor where three other apartments on two levels are accessible. The third floor up and seemingly a different world require a different doorway.
Mrs May seems to know everything that is going on with every tenant, has been around for a hundred years, has her own share of grief and heartache, is provocative and unafraid to ask her tenants that question - What do you want? Above all else. Anything. The thing you truly want with everything you are?
What is that one thing you would give up your soul for? It’s kind of an age old question and Carver explores it in a fresh, unique and sobering way. Through a cast of tenants, The Beresford is lodging for Abe, the shy geeky guy looking for love; Blair, the girl from the Bible Belt looking to find herself and cast off restraint; Gail, battered and abused, running from an abusive relationship, pregnant with life; Aubrey, privileged and wealthy, wanting to stand on her own two feet; Saffy, online jewellery maker overnight success story and Jordan Irving, would be script writer wanting to make a name for himself.
Mrs May is a pivotal character and Carver seems to use her to drive home the provocation of ‘selling your soul’ to contractually get the very thing you want (perhaps what you think you want?). She poses the question situation - “Imagine the building is engulfed in flames and you can only take one thing. I want you to grab that one thing and bring it back to me”. Firstly - that is a super hard thing for someone like me who doesn’t make choices easily and has never really allowed full expression to the things I like and secondly, how we respond to this situation gives us an insight into what it is that we really want. How to get it? Is there another way besides selling your soul and submitting to the ‘hell on earth’ idea that parallels this.
The Beresford is far more than a macabre tale - it is a statement about us, a statement about 21st century life. I have finished it feeling somewhat unsettled but pleased that this is book number one to see in the new year. It gives me much to reflect and journal - I need to spend time with that question - What do you want? - peel back the layers of each answer to find what it really really is.
2022 has really started with a bang with Will Carver’s standalone novel ‘The Beresford’. Deliciously and darkly disturbing, Carver serves up a diet of fantastic story telling while also making provocative statements about the human experience, both collective and otherwise. It really is the most unique writing style and Carver is fast becoming one of my favourite authors because of his uncanny ability to write a psychological thriller that is kind of really psychological.
Will Carver intersperses his novel with standalone chapters, each entitled, ‘What do you want?’, dissecting a number of ways that this question is responded to. It seems like such a simple question that surely is simple to answer. But even as I type these words I’m kind of in a state of paralysis over how I answer that question or what it is that I actually want. As Carver highlights, I could respond by saying what I don’t want, a common enough response, but one that doesn’t answer the question.
So, as per usual, Will Carver has set me on some sort of existential exploration, requiring reflection, introspection and the need to call a spade a spade. Carver doesn’t pull any punches in his writing and The Beresford attests to that on every page.
The Beresford is a set of apartments, an old world, grand building where the rent is unbelievably cheap but it would seem that to live there is costly. The apartment building is split into two levels with two separate entrances. The landlady and owner, Mrs May lives on the ground floor where three other apartments on two levels are accessible. The third floor up and seemingly a different world require a different doorway.
Mrs May seems to know everything that is going on with every tenant, has been around for a hundred years, has her own share of grief and heartache, is provocative and unafraid to ask her tenants that question - What do you want? Above all else. Anything. The thing you truly want with everything you are?
What is that one thing you would give up your soul for? It’s kind of an age old question and Carver explores it in a fresh, unique and sobering way. Through a cast of tenants, The Beresford is lodging for Abe, the shy geeky guy looking for love; Blair, the girl from the Bible Belt looking to find herself and cast off restraint; Gail, battered and abused, running from an abusive relationship, pregnant with life; Aubrey, privileged and wealthy, wanting to stand on her own two feet; Saffy, online jewellery maker overnight success story and Jordan Irving, would be script writer wanting to make a name for himself.
Mrs May is a pivotal character and Carver seems to use her to drive home the provocation of ‘selling your soul’ to contractually get the very thing you want (perhaps what you think you want?). She poses the question situation - “Imagine the building is engulfed in flames and you can only take one thing. I want you to grab that one thing and bring it back to me”. Firstly - that is a super hard thing for someone like me who doesn’t make choices easily and has never really allowed full expression to the things I like and secondly, how we respond to this situation gives us an insight into what it is that we really want. How to get it? Is there another way besides selling your soul and submitting to the ‘hell on earth’ idea that parallels this.
The Beresford is far more than a macabre tale - it is a statement about us, a statement about 21st century life. I have finished it feeling somewhat unsettled but pleased that this is book number one to see in the new year. It gives me much to reflect and journal - I need to spend time with that question - What do you want? - peel back the layers of each answer to find what it really really is.