The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu

The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart, according to the back flap, is the “basis for an album that [Mathias] Malzieu wrote.” I’d like to hear the album because I’m thinking his source material may have been better served in that medium. The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart isn’t a bad book, but even for a novella there isn’t much there and too much of it is either implied, assumed, or not earned; all of which wouldn’t matter in an album, but is disappointing in a book.

The main character, Jack, is given his odd heart at birth in 1874, when his own heart freezes on the coldest day ever in Edinburgh. Dr. Madeline is the mid-wife who gives him the heart to keep him alive and who takes him from his mother, who gives him up for adoption. Dr. Madeline warns Jack as he grows that his heart is too fragile ... Read More