Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt ***

Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt? Let’s start with Mr. Chartwell. He is a black Labrador, six-foot-seven standing in his hind legs. He speaks English and only appears to the two main characters: Winston Churchill (you remember him) and Esther Hammerhaus (librarian and secretary at the House of Commons Library). This a fantasy novel about depression, as personified by Mr. Chartwell.

The book is very British, from the vocabulary (boxroom, brogues, quag, factotum, doorcase…) to the life of Winston Churchill, who British readers will know that he died six months after this story takes place. While the subject is universal, the book makes it specifically British.

Mr Chartwell, the personification of depression, is also a ill-behaved dog, chewing on clothes and furnishings, tracking mud everywhere…

He cracked at the bone with the egg-sized molars at the rear of his mouth…The bone crushed into fragments…Splinters scattered over the table and cards, teeth grating.

A very British novel about two peoples’ struggles with depression without explicitly mentioning depression. I found the talking, invisible dog confusing.