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The Motion of Puppets by Keith Donohue
3 ★’s
From The Book:
In the Old City of Québec, Kay Harper falls in love with a puppet in the window of the Quatre Mains, a toy shop that is never open. She is spending her summer working as an acrobat with the cirque while her husband, Theo, is translating a biography of the pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Late one night, Kay fears someone is following her home. Surprised to see that the lights of the toy shop are on and the door is open, she takes shelter inside.
The next morning Theo wakes up to discover his wife is missing. Under police suspicion and frantic at her disappearance, he obsessively searches the streets of the Old City. Meanwhile, Kay has been transformed into a puppet, and is now a prisoner of the back room of the Quatre Mains, trapped with an odd assemblage of puppets from all over the world who can only come alive between the hours of midnight and dawn. The only way she can return to the human world is if Theo can find her and recognize her in her new form. So begins the dual odyssey of Keith Donohue’s The Motion of Puppets: of a husband determined to find his wife, and of a woman trapped in a magical world where her life is not her own.
My Thoughts:
Not sure what to think about this book. It wasn’t actually what I was expecting but it had some very good parts…so I believe it was deserving of the 3 rating. Those that are true fans of the horror or the science fiction genres will probably rate it higher.
I think that the author did an excellent job of making the reader feel the helplessness/hopelessness of the unknown and the fear that Kay and her poor husband, Theo were feeling throughout the story. Of course the believability was absent since I’m sure no one reading this actually believes that someone can be turned into a puppet or a big red ball or any other inanimate object. We can build our own conclusions based on the glimpses we are given of what Kay and Theo’s lives were like before this event and what they may now possibly be destined to become.
The story is intriguingly creepy in spite of being a bit slow getting started. I found myself wondering how much of our actual being is perceived and how is it perceived by those that are supposed to know us best? This question became important since the only way that Kay could return to her human form was for Theo to find and recognize her in her puppet form. I felt that in spite of the creep factor… it left many unanswered questions and Kay’s attitude throughout her “puppet life” bothered me a bit. Overall…it can be summed up as “horror without the blood and gore.”
