Bellman & Black
by Diane Setterfield
Caught up in a moment of boyhood competition, William Bellman recklessly aims his slingshot at a rook resting on a branch, killing the bird instantly. It is a small but cruel act, and is soon forgotten. By the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, William seems to have put the whole incident behind him. It was as if he never killed the thing at all. But rooks don’t forget…
Years later, when a stranger mysteriously enters William’s life, his fortunes begin to turn—and the terrible and unforeseen consequences of his past indiscretion take root. In a desperate bid to save the only precious thing he has left, he enters into a rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner. Together, they found a decidedly macabre business. And Bellman & Black is born.
There’s something about the way Diane Setterfield tells a story, as if readers are invited to lean in and hear the secrets of a tale long untold. There’s a quietness to her novels, a subtlety within the types of intrigue and mystery she weaves throughout. After reading Once Upon A River, Setterfield immediately became an author whose every work will certainly grace my shelves. With her other two novels already read and well-loved, Bellman & Black became a little gem on my shelf, the promise of a richly told story just waiting for me to pick it up.
Perhaps the first thing to be noted about Bellman & Black is that it is not a ghost story as some versions of the synopsis suggest. Suffused with mystery, tension, and hauntings in a sense, Bellman & Black certainly explores themes not uncommon within ghost stories of old (Dickens, specifically, who explored similar themes of what it means to truly live well), but is instead something adjacent to a ghost story—a story in which something ancient and ever-present makes itself known.
After ten-year-old William Bellman kills a rook with a catapult, there is a shift in the air, the world, and our story begins. William’s life unfolds before us, revealing a kind, steady, intelligent person—a good man with a good life. As he works his way up the ranks of his family’s mill, the pieces of his pleasant life slide into place around him. Marriage and children, wealth and the satisfaction of doing a good job at every turn. He knows himself to be a man who can handle anything put before him, a problem solver, someone people can rely on. As is characteristic of Setterfield’s other novels, Bellman & Black unfolds slowly, immersing readers within William’s life to the fullest extent. It’s slow, but engrossing. The sense of mystery and tension intensifies, the creeping sensation that the noose is tightening imperceptibly on every page building until the prose itself feels like a held breath. Something is happening, surely, but what is it? The plot is unclear, subtle, but laced with the feeling that it has been moving towards something that became unavoidable the very moment ten-year-old William released the rock from the catapult. When a strange figure, who keeps appearing at some of William’s darkest moments, appears once more with an opportunity for William, the tension rises further, bringing the mystery of Black to the surface as William is made a desperate man. A bargain is struck, and William does as he must. Nothing is as it seems in this macabre tale. It was captivating until the last page.
Bellman & Black leaves room for mystery even after its conclusion. Mirroring elements of the story, some of the most intriguing aspects of the novel exist almost on the periphery, just out of reach. Brilliant.
While some may think Bellman & Black too slow, I found its rhythms and prose mesmerizing, the layers and complexity within the themes and symbolism impressive and compelling. Setterfield’s storytelling is fantastic; the quality of writing and sense of atmosphere and intrigue make Bellman & Black the type of story that makes me relish, not resent, the slow pacing. From characters to the gothic setting of Victorian England, every element of this novel is well written. Interspersed throughout the novel are brief interludes about rooks themselves. Focused on bits of knowledge about the birds, their history, and their place in the world, these little chapters inched the story further in the direction of the otherworldly, revealing the mythological and symbolic significance of rooks. Upon finishing the novel, I immediately felt the need to go back to the beginning and read again, just to soak up what I likely missed through my first read that could be better recognized and understood now—these little chapters especially.
I love Setterfield’s novels. She writes like no other, striking a perfect balance of intrigue and atmosphere. With each of her novels I’ve read, I’m continually impressed by her prose, her use of symbolism and theme, and her ability to spin a tale so quietly gripping. While Bellman & Black isn’t my favorite of her three novels, I cannot deny that I was swept up within its pages and didn’t want to leave. It’s a classic sort of tale about life and death and the wheels of something far greater and far older than we can imagine turning. Told with enough otherworldly intrigue and style to be made fresh and wholly unpredictable, Bellman & Black is engrossing and highly satisfying.