another review for the Christmas Maze

The Christmas Maze by Danny Fahey – a Review by David Collis

 

Why do we seek to be good, to make the world a better place? Why do we seek to be ethical – to be altruistic, and even heroic? Danny Fahey’s The Christmas Maze: Where Hope is Found gives a narrative meditation on the place of hope in childhood, and what becomes of it.

 

The central character to Fahey’s story, the young boy Matthew, takes on a burden of guilt seemingly too heavy for any shoulders. Tricked by a man in a van promising a puppy, Matthew inadvertently allows his sister to be kidnapped – subject to horrifying fates that are only magnified by their lack of confirmation. It’s left to the imagination. This guilt resonates in Matthew, an existential hunger to make amends for what he allowed to happen to his sister. He must find and solve the Christmas Maze to rescue his sister.

 

As an author, Fahey draws upon archetypal narrative elements and sequences. Matthew embarks upon a journey to find his sister. Along the way he overcomes a series of ethical challenges. Like a quantum particle resolving into a particular state, Matthew creates his personality as he navigates a series of ethical challenges. He is guided by an unflinching grasp of courage, determination and compassion. Like hobbits, pilgrims, and heroes of a thousand stories, Matthew’s search shows him coming into being as an ethical person.

 

The blurry reality of this story, moving between psychological and external realities, meditates on the power of virtue in the face of adult badness. The world is dead if it is controlled by the powerful, but children can interrupt power if they will it. The world can be refreshed through courage, determination and compassion which are more powerful than power. Echoing the ethos of Hayao Miyazaki’s transformative child characters, Fahey’s hero Matthew, a child, is able to transform reality in a way that no adult can. Psychological resolution unfolds alongside this transformation of reality.

 

Notwithstanding its heavy themes of kidnapping and implied pedophilia and murder, The Christmas Maze is a book for children. In the best fairy tale traditions, Fahey does not treat child readers with kid gloves. Rather, he trusts child readers to cope with brutal realities – of searing regrets, overwhelming guilt, and an all-consuming search to make amends. Child readers will recognise the author of The Christmas Maze as a storyteller who looks them in the eye and speaks candidly to them as real people. By not shying away from dark themes, Fahey believes in children, believing they can become adults capable of seeing the world in all its light and shade.

 

The Christmas Maze is also a story for adults. It reminds us that the child lays down the reality that the adult inhabits – where childhood decisions establish character and set the framework for adulthood. The child is the parent to the adult. And the adult must, if they are to remain spiritually alive, remember the child whose decisions defined them. Through the story of The Christmas Maze. Adult readers must ask: in the face of alluring cynicism, do they believe that courage, determination and compassion are more powerful than power?

 

The Christmas Maze

 

The Christmas Maze: Where Hope is Found

By Danny Fahey

Description

As a little boy, Matthew watched as the stranger drove away in the Valiant, with his sister sitting in the passenger seat on their way to get them a puppy. As the Valiant turned the wrong corner, Matthew realised there was no puppy-his sister had been kidnapped. Now Matthew must find and save her. To do that he must solve the Christmas Maze because if you solved the Christmas Maze then all that you wished for would come true. All he wished for was for his sister to be safe and at home.

Of course, finding The Christmas Maze would be the hardest thing he had ever done...

Solving the Maze harder still...

About the Author

Danny Fahey works at Trinity College/University of Melbourne where he is the Associate Dean, Teaching & Learning, Pathways School. Danny has over 20 years’ experience working in education as a Drama teacher and theatre-in education performer. Danny is happily married with 2 grown-up children and a cat named Lenny. He has had three previous novels published by now defunct publishers. Danny is also a published poet who enjoys reading and writing, has acted in a film or two, spends his spare time managing (just) his small backyard food forest and promises himself one day he will return to occasionally painting up a mess. He is an okay cook but not a particularly good driver of motor vehicles.

Categories

Novel; middle grade; young teen; Christmas; historical

Readership

Middle Grade (Young Teen)

Contents

24 chapters and an epilogue.

Release Details

World-Wide: 30 November 2022

Published by IFWG Publishing Australia (AU/NZ/UK) and IFWG Publishing International (North America/Canada) 264 pp

229mm x 152mm Australian/International English
US Paperback:
ISBN: 978-1-922856-20-3
RRP: US$17.99, CND$20.99 AU/NZ/UK Paperback:
ISBN: 978-1-922556-99-8
RRP: AU$29.95, NZ$31.99 UK£13.99 eBook formats (Kindle/EPUB/iBook/Kobo/NOOK)
RRP: US$5.99, AU$5.99, NZ$5.99, UK£5.99
Please refer to Publisher for other prices and ISBN codes

All inquires about this book, our terms of trade, or publishing with us:
SQ Mag Pty Ltd
trading as IFWG Publishing Australia, IFWG Publishing Intl, & IPI Comics Melbourne, Australia

Email: ifwg@ifwgpublishing.com
Tel.: +61 4 2173 9061
Website: http://www.ifwgaustralia.com ABN: 50 614 249 795

Distributors

UK/Europe: Gazelle Book Services https://gazellebookservices.co.uk US/Canada: IPG https://www.ipgbook.com
Australia/New Zealand: Novella Distributors (NZ Novella via Wheelers) https://bookstores.novelladistribution.com .au

2nd review of The Christmas Maze

 

This story takes you on a mystical journey with Matthew a young boy whose little sister was abducted while playing with Matthew in the front yard of their home. Matthew blames himself and is desperate to find Lucy and bring her safely home.

He remembers his parents reading him a story about the Christmas Maze where anything no matter how terrible can be reversed and resolved. Matthew sets off on his journey to find the Maze and so find Lucy and bring her safely home.

 

This is a beautifully written story that keeps you emotionally involved on every step of the journey.

A thoroughly satisfying and enjoyable read and one I highly recommend.

 

by Mary Clark

First review of my new novel The Christmas Maze

Redemption and recovery in Danny Fahey’s The Christmas Maze

There are few things more magical for a child than the fantasy and mythology of Christmas. This is the idea at the heart of a novel that combines the dissonant suburban world of Australia in the mid-twentieth century with the received mythology of European Christmastime.

Despite the magical themes and lush, festive folklore, Fahey’s novel begins with two disturbing scenes of childhood separation and angst that set the main character, Matthew, on his journey to make everything right again. The only way he can restore the safety of his family life is through the Christmas Maze – the place where all children can be redeemed for their misdeeds, and become whole again.

On his quest, Matthew encounters characters who embody literary archetypes, and who weave his story into a bigger, timeless narrative. Fahey weaves rich mythology and folklore into his tale, and his own creations are seamlessly interwoven with those that are already well-established. Matthew becomes a character who, through his ordinariness, becomes resilient, empathic and determined, learning how his own experiences are informed by others who went before him.

The story twists and turns through dreamscapes and scenes that destabilise the reader’s assumptions in ways that are sometimes delightful and sometimes confronting – all pushing towards the goal of the Maze. This push is underpinned by a sense of loss that threatens to tip into tragedy, and some scenes in the novel are almost unbearably sad – relieved in part by Fahey’s characteristic humour — pushing the reader on towards the sense that joy is waiting at the end of the quest.

Fahey’s balance of the tragic with the joyous is skillful, and as a writer he walks a line as precarious as that of his hero’s own circus tightrope. The story is as informed by his own understanding of long-established storytelling traditions as it is by Fahey’s own vivid and fantastical originality. As readers we are hooked into Matthew’s story by his own attempts to grapple with the situation in which he finds himself, and thus the choices that face him in his attempt to reclaim wholeness. Fahey explores Matthew’s angst with depth and complexity.

A story like this promises much in terms of restoration and the subversion of our expectations, and delivers both. For persisting through the difficulty of the quest and the discomfort of its origins, the reader is well-recompensed with an ending that is as joyous as it is unexpected.

This novel explores all the uncertainty and joy of childhood, delivering a Christmas journey that is – as the season demands – restorative.

 

by Dr. Miriam Nicholls.

New Publisher

 https://ifwgaustralia.com/2021/04/13/new-acquisition-the-christmas-maze-by-danny-fahey/

Sometimes, mother:

 

Mother sometimes
and the fault lies in the formation, cliffs
and troughs spring out of connections formed
in plates rather than seamlessly. Ruptures occur
a face can feel as if it is floundering in sand
breathing in such cases resembles drowning
a hand waving but the signal signals to siblings
run, back out the backdoor, revisit friends
once more, feed yourselves, dress yourselves
for heaven’s sake, save yourselves.

Mother sometimes
what I wish for, which must always remain
separate from what is wished for me,
radiates outwards, silence can be a tool
to suppress hurt, I learnt that lesson
a long time ago; words emitted are not butterflies
free to cavort and land where they desire, words
are barbs hungry to grip and snare – your eyes
have always been twin pools
I hated seeing my reflection within.

Mother sometimes
I catch a certain look that draws upon you
I hear the curtain rings clink
see the light diminish, know your thoughts
have returned to the realm before
in that barefoot paddock where wounds
are formed by circumstances never understood
like having a brother who died
and so took pride of place in a manner
you never could.

Dinosaurs:

 

What goes between
is trapped by pockets
of air, themselves trapped by flakes of snow
that alter under pressure, become ice
a captured story that contains
that day’s actions, a hand
light upon soft skin
around the nape of neck, bare
foot taps another foot’s toes and nails
in time with a current song, bodies push
and weave into spaces that yield
and return, words too
become ensnared, buried
in time, squeezed into tales
barely remembered, then comes
a time in light, an action triggers
the memory, sunshine releases air
after a century
of being compressed, thirty
or more years ago now, laughter, hair
blown by a breeze from a time
before climate
became the talking point
a time
before children walked the earth.

sandstone and shadows:

 

Time erected as if it could
be built forever –
know it as a lie, the finger
etched into the stone a sideshow
nothing will last forever.

Written words sold, sacred contract
as each device lasted
longer than the precursor – a diaspora
of peoples cross the blocks
and girders of progress.

When then did it get turned
on its head – built for mayflies instead?
What finger, what wall,
a new temple made from sand
that tumbled faster than years could build?

Three hours not three decades
a mire of broken goods loll –
plastic islands in the ocean, oil products
for hermit crabs and newly formed rocks
build blocks of decay.

Children focus elsewhere
as hands, turned wrinkled,
how strong they grip the bed – the aged
know how to hold – the young
look elsewhere.

Is it then
the construction of a desert, gods
destined to turn away, the hand withdrawn
a finger no longer exists to write
prophesy upon the wall?

Asking why makes us human:

 

Head not above benchtop
eyes peer up, the struggle to see
in the giant’s lair, a finger
points to the jar, the lid so secure
small hands cannot unwind.

No other creature,
when denied
will ask why?

Stand at the window, watch
the rain that falls upon the garden, gate
and street, imagine footsteps
that head through the gate
and up the street to the corner.

No other creature
when abandoned
will ask why?

Bald head, toothless mouth
the body rejects movement
calcifying with the effect
of too many years in oxygen, weary
eyes ponder the darkness ahead.

No other creature
when faced with the end
will ask why?

Saying hello to magpies:

 

She always does,
when they hop along the street
neighbours popping in for a tea and chat
she listens to them
with a curious wrinkled brow
lips teased by front teeth.

Her skill at listening
heeding the eyes and voice
of magpies and spirits
her time-free patience
makes children
of us all.

When she sees a magpie
it’s my father’s spirit
coming to say hello
to check all is well
to tell a joke as only a magpie
in that warble can tell.

She loved my father,
not for his smile
or the gifts always bestowed
but because in her world of chaos
and horrid voices without relent
he bequeathed calm.

The world is a better place
for magpies, she says, their song
unique among birds, captures
sunrise and calls down the night
conferring peace in a world
too ready to be tumultuous.

fruit picking:

 

Fathom this, floating oranges, peeled
with fingers and teeth, drift
between words shared
on that backstep, looking out
at the decrepit sheds
full of old toys so lost they spoke
amongst themselves
and to you, that was the shock
even back then, so many things spoke to you
as your father did not, the beer spoke to him
and kept him silent unless rage took hold
then we’d sit on the back step
and share another orange –

even now, old and gray, when I
choose an orange
out of the fruit bowl, my legs automatically
wander me outside
sit me down on the back step, as I pluck
the first hole with two front teeth
as you always did back then
I recall again the sound
of china teacups as they hit
the shocked walls in a song
accepted even as skin and bones
reverberated like cheap plaster.

Shame is a tree:

Shame is a thirsty tree
roots within ribs
winds branches across bones
places leaves between discs
feeds on words
until silence remains
turns hands into fists
furrows flesh, turns a face
into a mountain
with canyons for the secret tears.

Shame grows in the dark
poisonous when shared
murderous when left alone
I have scissors bought at a flea market
snip snip in the late afternoons
treat the tree as a bonsai
and shape it with will, it is smaller now
grows in places set aside
so the rest of me is free
to decide who I should be. 

duck placed under a bucket

Darkness, the slice of a knife
bewildered mind, distant honks
feel the ground underfoot
and metallic dink dink of bill
against nonperishable tin
ponder flight as wings ache
disuse is the hardest excuse
exudes a laziness, no ears
care for stories of imprisonment.

My hard-earned is on certain facts –
two bets;
duck will settle, regain the sense
of being in the egg, wait
until the bucket is lifted
then with a honk and waddle
will hurry off to join the others
and that it is female
in carrying life they must fight
to avoid the buckets placed to curtail.

Absence creates more buckets
than there are ducks in the universe.

a life metaphor

 

 

 

 

the cemetery and all the stone

and marble crucifixes

the angels with eyes

lifted up to the heavens

the slabs of marble and granite

holding bones in eternal hugs

the names and dates and dried up petals

the empty vases and incense holders

the trees for shade

the ashes in rows

the roses for tears and never bestowed kisses

resides in perpetuity

inside our flesh and bones, in the skulls and marrow

of all of us but mostly

in the women who birth us.

Beneath Paris:

 

In the dark city of reflection walls are made

from skulls and other random bones,

create spaces of separateness in the limestone

avenues to wander by the light of carbide

whisper romantic songs into the starless ceiling

hold hands with ghosts who roam the streets

as they try to remember the address upstairs.

It is there voices meet, pretend to be echoes

recount old stories of sunlight and birdsong

with hearts that long to return, seeds that need

warmth for life to burst upon them again, hands

ready to push through rock and soil, two arms

to spread into the joyous stance of ballerinas.

Poets fish the Night’s Oceans:

It is a difficult hunt in waters

filled with the eternally unseen

afterimages of things imagined

sensory echoes of experiences

bittersweet scent of dreams.

 

The water is deep

heavily salted with tears

forces anglers time

and time again back to the surface.

 

The plunge brings a proximity to death

the other side of life’s coin.

 

it risks forgetfulness and idle hours

staring into the currents words leave behind.

 

old friends float

other anglers greet

some hold up catches that can fade

or appear larger in the light.

 

These fish cannot sate

drive the fishers to try again and again

an addiction

to hunt the ripples, the after-taste, the hope.

 

The quest for what cannot be complete

for what cannot ever be brought

truly to the surface whole

but in parts

scales that reflect sunlight

and hold a darkness within.

 

So cold now

and so warm fishing all these years

they stretch out behind

like the drying bones of leviathans

perpetually now at rest

on the edge of night’s tilted shores.

The Carter:

 

Who is this man? Pulls the wagon

wooden wheels, the cart chocked

with femurs and skulls, the remains

removed from the clogged cemeteries

to a new place of rest; even the dead crowd

their silence louder than car horns,

strident as voices can only desire to be.

 

Who is this man? Dressed in white

so that he glows in the subterranean city

working through the days beneath the workers

working through their days; he has no sun

until he returns upstairs to sleep,

instead the gentle hum of carbide, the sound

of wooden wheels across limestone.

 

Who is this man? Leads the cart of the dead

deeper into the labyrinth as if carrying

the rejected who had no coins for Kharon

and must travel by road instead; he wears a hat

and white smock as if an artist, searches

for the site of his next great masterpiece

the ink the years, the bristles the finality of death.

for my children because I too often forget:

 

In this fix, stuck fast

between the opening my feet dangle into

and the small space my head has found

my chest and back pressed, breath difficult –

 

I may never make sound again and here I wanted to

connect, say some things, explain but stuck fast,

the moment a rock that gives no ground, so many words,

cavern moths flutter into the shadows and are gone.

 

The pressure builds, the thought

is this the last time we’ll ever talk

and I cannot find the sound, so pressed are my ribs

so difficult to expand the lungs.

 

then the rope, the chisel,

the hammer, a chance; I forget words,

let thoughts as bats hang and sleep in the dark

and use my ears to find the path, I listen.

 

That act we so often forget

as we explore

the ears, the canals, the passage

into the underneath.

The boy as an older man to his mother:

Into this then, this space
of sacred rocks placed in balance,
the sunlight to screen thoughts.

I remember when we were young
you held my hand, mother, as I
now hold yours, your eyes then, clear
looking forward to a time of me
never to become a reality,

those rocks that hover
huddle against wind and word
create shelter in thought and deed.

This man I am, distant now
from that time of holding hands,
my children adults now
who plan that hand-holding in their futures
and whatever they will see
standing there with their’s
will match
and will not

the vision you had
and that now sometimes I glimpse echoes of
as you sit, frail, barely present
in this second between dreams.
 

Puhpowee:

 

They make their own wind to send children

out into the world

thrive in the electrical storms

have their own force that pushes them

to emerge ready to be seen every morning

some can bend the mind

form miniature circles and amphitheaters

provide shelter and shade

 

and all the while we think of apples falling

an atom’s dance

and a cat that’s neither here nor there

 

while failing to see powers that create

as they feed on radioactive waste

and dream of one single forest again.