THE WASP FACTORY by Iain Banks

Finished Tu 11/15/11

Francis Leslie Cauldhame is just the kind of individual that Warren Zevon had in mind when he wrote the song, EXCITABLE BOY.

Seventeen year old Frank Cauldhame lives with his father on an isolated island in Eastern Scotland upon which he has built a collection of weird totems and magical sites of horror that illustrate his freakish and damaged psyche. The actual 'Wasp Factory' is a chamber of horrors designed to torture wasps on the face of a discarded bank clock one meter wide.

Before he was eight years old, he has killed three people, but he only considers this a phase. His first killing was a male cousin who he murdered with a poisonous snake. Then, he kills his younger brother by tricking him into detonating a recovered bomb from WWII. And, finally he causes a very young cousin to be carried out to sea in an extremely bizarre kiting accident. Needless, to say, Frankie has got some issues.

The novel is told in the first person, and Frank is the twisted narrator who describes the action, and fills the reader in on his neurotic back-story. His brother, Eric, has recently escaped from a high-security mental institution, and seems to be heading toward the island. And, we find that Frank was the victim of a vicious dog attack which left him castrated at the age of three.

However, in the final twist in this extremely twisted tale, the reader learns that 'Francis Leslie' is really 'Frances Lesley', and his deranged father wanted to raise him as a male for reasons too murky to state.

The closest novel that I can think of that is anything like this, is AMERICAN PSYCHO by Bret Easton Ellis, but Bank's novel is slightly more primitive. Imagine Patrick Bateman as one of the boys from LORD OF THE FLIES who happens to live on an island in remote Scotland.

THE WASP FACTORY is a short novel, and packs a wallop in a compelling, yet sick way. The fact that this was Iain Bank's first novel is really something!