Rebecca Hunt – Mr Chartwell

The premise of this book made me so excited! Winston Churchill’s famous depression, which he described as a ‘Black Dog,’ is, in fact, an Actual Black Dog, who goes to live with Esther so that he can commute over to Mr Churchill’s house and depress the bejesus out of him. Mr Churchill is about to retire, and is all, was it worth it? To which the reader answers, dude, you saved the free world, so yes. Also, don’t let a bit of spare time get you down, you’ve earned it. Enjoy your gardening and your Radio Four!

Esther herself is also pretty unhappy about various things which are revealed through her conversations with the Black Dog.

But the idea is so fizzy that by comparison, the rest of the story is a bit fizzled out. There is an awkward balance between ACCEPTING there’s a big Black Dog wandering about sitting on people’s chests; and EXPLAINING the various details of why and how this should all be. And once you start to get too much into the explaining, instead of the accepting, then you just need more and more explanations. The Esther plotline was rather too obvious and her friends were rather too annoying.

Still, it’s short and original and easy-readable with some lovely expressions. Mr Churchill talks in private exactly how I would imagine him to: all stirring and Churchillian. He’s fighting them on the beaches even when ‘them’ are his own private demons. Mr Chartwell, the Black Dog, is mysterious and matter-of-fact and strangely endearing considering his raison d’etre is to make people miserable.

So hats off to Rebecca Hunt for taking a subject like depression and making it whimsical without trivialising it. I look forward to her future work.