“Drood: A Novel”, by Dan Simmons

784 pages, Little, Brown and Company, ISBN-13: 978-0316007023

Drood: A Novel by Dan Simmons is his take on the relationship between Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, authors, compatriots, friends and – according to Simmons – enemies of the first rate. This last bit is a mystery to me, seeing as I have read biographies on both Dickens (Dickens: A Biography by Fred Kaplan, reviewed on May 11, 2012) and Collins (Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation by Andrew Lycett, reviewed on April 11, 2019) and, according to both books by different authors, Dickens and Collins got along like a house on fire. But Drood looks at the secret, dark life of Charles Dickens and his relationship with a very creepy individual named Drood, as told through the eyes of Wilkie Collins, the (supposedly) jealous and opiate-addicted competitor of Dickens, with some real problems of his own.

Historical fiction is a genre unto itself and, be it based on real people, true moments in history or pure fiction, the most important aspect of any such story is that of the time period in which the story takes place itself; it must actually be the strongest character and transport the reader back to that place and time, from the cracks in the sidewalk to the wheels on the carriages, and from here the characters develop and their actions and attitudes must not only tell the story but continue the presence of the time period. Simmons succeeds in this respect as he recreates the late-Victorian era in our minds by crafting his story around the creation of Dickens’ last, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood; is Drood a real person, or is he a manifestation in the mind of Dickens? Wilkie Collins is our (unreliable) narrator in this interesting tale that rambles on for almost 800 pages.

As first person narrative, Author Simmons fulfills the book’s ultimate premise: a memoir purporting to be written by a 19^th Century sensationalist novelist that reads as if it were, in fact, written by a 19^th Century sensationalist novelist. In that context, not a word is out of place here: the banality, the redundant descriptions, the frustrating (to the reader) inability to conclude a subplot, the resentful appreciation of genius all exist seamlessly in the personality depicted in these 800+ pages. It’s clear that Simmons inhabited Collins’ essence while narrating this story, and it’s this aspect of the book that I found fascinating because it takes great skill to render such a true result.

That said, this is not a book to read for the tightly crafted suspense or because there will be a rewarding arc or even an interesting story at the end; if there were, the purpose for which I suspect this book was written would not have been served. While Drood is alright, it is also deeply flawed. I am not exaggerating in any way when I say that 400-or-so pages of this book could have been cut and it would have been a far greater story. I’m not sure why Simmons felt the need to write this massive tome, but I feel he could really have benefited from a more aggressive editor. As to why he thinks that Collins hated and resented Dickens…maybe that says more about Simmons than it does about Collins.