Five Things You Need To Know About Neil Gaiman’s Brand New Book

Yes, there’s a new Neil Gaiman book. Well, not entirely new: it’s an adaptation of a pre-existing story of his. And, as you’ll see below, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains blurs the lines between story, novella and graphic novel. A collaboration with illustrator Eddie Campbell (of From Hell fame, among other exploits), it’s subtitled “A Tale of Travel and Darkness with Pictures of All Kinds.”

That neatly sums Gaiman’s vision of a dwarf who hires a “reaver” to guide him through the hills and mountains of Scotland – amidst echoes of Jacobitism several hundred years ago – to retrieve gold from a cave that’s rumoured to hold a damning curse. “Everything has its cost,” as the hero intones at one point.

Inspired by the Black Cuillin mountains in Scotland’s Isle of Skye, it’s a bleak tale packing surprises aplenty. In other words? A deserving addition to a body of work that includes The Sandman, Coraline, Stardust, The Ocean at the End of The Lane and so much more.

Here’s what you need to know before reading it.

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#1. It’s more than a short story, but not quite a graphic novel

It’s not exactly a graphic novel, though there are illustrations on every page and occasional comic panels dispensing dialogue. Technically it’s a novelette, running 73 pages in this incarnation, but you could also just call it a short story.

Whatever way, it’s the shifting presentation of Campbell’s art that make the collaboration so unique: on some pages the illustrations are simply images next to the text; on some they’re the backdrop of the page as well; and on others they threaten to overtake the entire two-page spread. Campbell’s style changes as well, from scrawled sketches to painterly portraits – with varying degrees in between. Images overlap and nudge against the text, taking on a definite life of their own.

As Gaiman says: “It’s a story with pictures unlike anything else I’ve written.”

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#2. It’s got a serious Australian pedigree

“I love Australia,” writes Gaiman in a note at the book’s end. (So does his wife, Amanda Palmer.) And, in fact, this collaboration sprang from Gaiman reading his unpublished story at a sold-out Sydney Opera House with images from Campbell and live musical accompaniment from Sydney’s own FourPlay String Quartet back in 2011, as part of the Graphic festival.

He read it again, with more new Campbell paintings, at MONA FOMA in Hobart last year. And though a native of Scotland (making him especially suited to this tale), Campbell now lives right here in Australia.

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#3. There are definite shades of Game of Thrones

Beyond the fact that it stars a dwarf who is continually underestimated by everyone he meets, the book features quite brutal betrayals and twists of fate. Sound familiar? There are even some elements of magic, but Gaiman’s story unfolds more like a well-trodden fable or especially grim (no pun intended) fairy tale than something directly inspired by George R.R. Martin.

Like all the best Gaiman work, it takes cues from centuries of storytelling tradition while subtly playing around with the conventions therein. This one may seem straighter than some of his yarns, but it’s still offhandedly profound in that usual Gaiman way.

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#4. It’s already won two awards

Even before this illustrated edition emerged, ‘The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains’ was published in the anthology Stories, and subsequently picked up both the Locus Award and the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette. Let’s see how many more awards it scores in this bravura form.

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#5. It’s coming to Carnegie Hall

That’s right: Gaiman and FourPlay are taking their reading/music collaboration to New York’s iconic venue next week – along with stops in London and San Francisco – before finishing, appropriately, in Edinburgh, Scotland. As the saying goes: now it belongs to the world.

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The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains is out now on hardback, through Hachette.

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Doug Wallen is Editor of Mess + Noise and Music Editor of The Big Issue. He also writes for Rolling Stone, TheVine, FasterLouder and The Thousands.

Feature image by Kimberly Butler, supplied by Hachette.