By: PAIGE FOSTER
Staff Writer
Stephen Chbosky’s novel Imaginary Friend follows a mother fleeing an abusive relationship with her young son, Christopher. The two settle in a tiny town in Pennsylvania, where Christopher struggles with his academics, and his mother works relentlessly to support the both of them and give Christopher every chance at success. The family’s struggle seems to come to a head when Christopher vanishes for six days before emerging from the woods and being spotted by a local teenager. Christopher is – miraculously – unharmed, but he has no memory of his absence, and he is not unchanged from the incident. Christopher’s academic performance improves drastically, his mother wins the lottery, and Christopher has a strange new voice in his head which he calls his imaginary friend. Even more strange: Christopher attributes his newfound good fortune to this friend.
Chbosky’s novel is nothing if not original. His manipulation of such mundane aspects of writing as capitalization, repetition, and page breaks create a sense of building horror equal to that of a movie. Unlike a movie, Chbosky is able to provide a rich background into the inner minds of every single character, giving the entire plot a richness from its wide scope of human experience. The repetition in the novel is particularly notable. Chbosky utilizes certain descriptive phrases over and over throughout the story. Each time, their meaning varies and gains nuance. These little, circular themes add to the meaning of the work as a whole and give it an incredible degree of dimension. My only complaint is that there were one or two sub-conflicts that were not fully resolved at the conclusion of the book. An author of Chbosky’s caliber is too smart to do this unintentionally, but I disagree with his choice to leave some questions unanswered because it is easy, lazy writing. This contrasts sharply with the poignant precision evident in all of his other work.
Overall, I would highly recommend Imaginary Friend not only to lovers of horror novels but to anyone looking for a book that grabs your attention. Chbosky’s novel is engaging, suspenseful, and extraordinarily well-written.