The Daves Next Door by Will Carver

Today is my last tour stop of what has been a busy reading and reviewing month, for me anyway. But I'm going out with a bang! Today it's the turn of The Daves Next Door by Will Carver. Now, having read a few of Will's previous books I knew it was probably going to be a mind blowing read and... it was! Big thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me on the tour and to publisher for my review copy. 

The Blurb

A disillusioned nurse suddenly learns how to care.

An injured young sportsman wakes up to find that he can see only in black and white.

A desperate old widower takes too many pills and believes that two angels have arrived to usher him through purgatory.

Two agoraphobic men called Dave share the symptoms of a brain tumour, and frequently waken their neighbour with their ongoing rows.

Separate lives, running in parallel, destined to collide and then explode. Like the suicide bomber, riding the Circle Line, day after day, waiting for the right time to detonate, waiting for answers to his questions: Am I God? Am I dead? Will I blow up this train?

Shocking, intensely emotive and wildly original, Will Carver’s The Daves Next Door is an explosive existential thriller and a piercing examination of what it means to be human … or not. 

My Review

Having read four of Will Carver's previous books, beginning with the outstanding Nothing Important Happened Today at the end of 2019, as well as being mind blowing and unpredictable, as mentioned above, they have been nigh on impossible to review! Well, again, this one is no different. I honestly have no idea were to start. 

A summary, I'll start with a summary! A small group of strangers, with no connection, will find themselves inextricably linked. Saul, mourning a lost love and attempting suicide, the sportsman - we never know his name or his sport, Vashti, a jaded nurse who finds herself beginning to care again, the Daves of the title and our narrator, who might be God or a terrorist or just simply our narrator. Or all three. We meet each of them, and a small cast of supporting characters, over the course of a few days, culminating in life changing events for all of them. 

The chapters are short and sharp, keeping things rattling along. They are written in the present tense, giving a feeling of immediacy, and in the third person, except those from the point of view of Narrator/God/Terrorist, which are in the second person, addressing the reader directly. I've seen this in the author's earlier books too and it is very effective. Sometimes, it's quite aggressive. Here, our Narrator/God/Terrorist asks constant questions, forcing the reader to really think. About the small stuff - Diagnosis Murder gets a mention, the huge subjects and questions about the story so far. 

All the characters are interesting and incredibly well written. Standouts would be Saul, heartbroken after the death of his wife and confused by the angels he finds in his home and Vashti, tired and worn down by her work, as are many of her colleagues and, of course, as are so many of our actual NHS workers. And a shout out for the Daves, the most inspired, in my opinion, of this collection of creations. 

The Daves Next Door is brilliantly written - 'Time passes. Haemophilic seconds bleeding furiously into seconds that feel like weeks...', darkly 

comic in places and full of fascinating characters. It discusses big issues - racism, religion, radicalisation, apathy, addiction to social media, lack of engagement with the real world, what it is to feel, what it is to be human. It is not an easy, relaxing read. It questions, shocks, confronts and challenges. And it's absolutely worth the effort. 


The Author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series. He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children. Will’s most recent title, prior to this one, published by Orenda Books, The Beresford came out last July. His previous title, Hinton Hollow Death Trip, was longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize, while Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Good Samaritans was book of the year in the Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Express, and hit number one on the ebook charts.