Marco's Pendulum

Thom Madley

When Marco is dumped in Glastonbury to stay with his weird hippy grandparents for the summer, he's sure he's going to hate it. But he soon starts to recognise the magic of the place - the magic that a development company is planning to exploit and, his grandparents are sure, destroy the process. With his mysterious new found talent for dowsing, Marco is quickly drawn into the dangerous struggle to protect the ancient mysticism of Glastonbury.

Review by Chrissi (300906) Rating (8/10)

Review by Chrissi
Marco is a child whose parents work and have little time for him, and when his mum has to go away, he is left with is father. Unfortunately his father is also very busy and is unable to look after him, and so he does what Marco’s mother would be very upset about – he takes Marco to stay with her parents at Glastonbury.

Marco’s mum left her parents disapproving of their lifestyle and their beliefs. They live slightly outside the boundaries of normal suburban life, with what could be politely called an alternative lifestyle; Marco’s grandfather opens by introducing himself as Woolly. Marco is not happy to be there and does not start to settle well, feeling a huge gap between himself and the other people around him. He sees the differences between the original, ‘normal’, locals and the new age believers and is unsure what is happening in the town.

Marco meets Rosa, another outsider, the daughter of a priest recently arrived in Glastonbury. Rosa is not happy to be there, she feels things and her parents are upset about the things that she says she feels. Her father is a strict man, lately called to be a priest and who has moved his family from the north of the country. Her mother and father are concerned about Rosa and as a result she tries not to tell them anything for fear of upsetting them.

Woolly is a long term resident of Glastonbury, and believes strongly in the spiritual side of the town. He takes Marco up the Tor, believed to be a place of power, and Marco has an experience that he cannot explain. Marco has a friend, Josh, whose father is a psychiatrist and Marco tries to explain his feeling to Josh who always tries to make a psychiatric diagnosis. Some of the internal conversations that Marco has with himself as Josh are great, trying to make sense out of an abnormal situation with a ready wit.

There are some frictions between the local children and outsiders, leading to a very nasty prank played on Marco and Rosa. Finding themselves trapped, they have to work together to find their way out, a situation made worse by Marco’s claustrophobia. Marco still has the dowsing pendulum and uses it, both to help to calm himself and to get them out of their awful situation.

There have always been stories of Glastonbury as the resting place for an artefact of immense significance, and a sceptical reader might leap to an obvious conclusion. I like the possibility that there is something there, although I don’t think that it was a necessity to set the story in Glastonbury, it adds a certain something just by association. Here we have lots of creepy goings on, with ghostly monks and weird business men, all tying up to make an excellent story. In the back of the book are some teaser questions about the next instalment, and I’m as intrigued as the next person, so I will be waiting, wanting to see what happens next…
Chrissi (30th September 2006)