Review: The Bedlam Stacks, by Natasha Pulley

In 1859, ex–East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall with an injury that almost cost him his leg. When the India Office recruits him for an expedition to fetch quinine--essential for the treatment of malaria--from deep within Peru, he knows it's a terrible idea; nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who's made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is eager to escape the strange events plaguing his family's crumbling estate, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for the edge of the Amazon.
There he meets Raphael, a priest around whom the villagers spin unsettling stories of impossible disappearances, cursed woods, and living stone. Merrick must separate truth from fairy tale, and gradually he realizes that Raphael is the key to a legacy left by generations of Tremayne explorers before him, one which will prove more valuable than quinine, and far more dangerous.

"He wasn't crude work but the ruin of something fine."

Natasha Pulley's The Bedlam Stacks is an atmospheric story set in Chile and filled with magical realism, full of wonder. We follow Merrick, a disabled character, as he has to join an expedition he would have rather abandoned because of his new disability. In the liminal space of a town his grandfather used to visit once, he will find Raphael, a mysterious man who seems to be ailed by a strange condition.

The prose as always with Pulley, was spectacular, so very simple and yet complex and magical. It's a slow reveal of a novel, a quiet treasure that one should savor. The magical elements come together slowly, revealing the magic behind the ordinary and beyond the objective European mind, unveiling a wholly different way of thinking.

I appreciated how Merrick was written, exploring his disability and his struggles in a very believable way, and I loved what we got to see of Raphael. Their feelings are never made explicit, but this is undoubtedly a love story, one that has a bittersweet ending. Like other Pulley characters, they are flawed and sometimes nasty, but always so very human. And fans of the Watchmaker of Filigree Street will find an incredible cameo and appreciate even more a beloved character.

The magical realism aspects were very intriguing, especially once the veil is lifted and things are revealed to be much more than they seem at first glance. The other characters feel a bit empty, with only the physician having a little depth.

The Bedlam Stacks is a quiet marvel.

✨ 4 stars