I’m the King of the Castle was a book that spoke to me. I still remember how violently it moved me when I first read it in my early teens, leaving me angry, sad, confused and questioning. Recently I re-read it, and was left still grasping for an explanation, finding its secluded setting, banally gruesome plot, and tragically defective or damaged characters just as harrowing.


This is a profoundly provocative and troubling novel, which deals with one of the most wounding and unfathomable enigmas of them all: the suicide of a child. This is a story about the cruelty of children towards other children, and of a deadly psychological duel between two boys – of a subtlety and intensity that is shocking, and yet belongs so chillingly to the world of children. It is about the hidden suffering of a young boy, and the exasperating – perhaps unforgivable – failure of adults too wrapped up in their own lives to take proper notice.


Nothing today is so unfashionable as evil, but I challenge anybody to read this book and not find its presence to be very much alive in its pages; defying all explanation and out-staring or outwitting all resistance with fiendish courage and persistence, then leaping from strength to strength, and ultimately exalting in all its horrifying glory. Evil takes its shape as much in indifference as in the form of the story’s apparent child-monster, the seemingly unexplainable Edmund Hooper. If you can imagine a story almost utterly devoid of the presence of love, then you may have some idea of what I’m the King of the Castle is about.


I’m the King of the Castle raises more questions than it answers – about the human condition; the development and behaviour of children; and the dreaded but much maligned idea of evil. Like many great books, Susan Hill’s haunting masterpiece is probably better read than read about; and my full-hearted recommendation to anyone must be:


Read this book! It’s among the very best I’ve ever seen.

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Created Apr 19, 2005 at 6:08pm • Submit your own review...