Peaces

 by Helen Oyeyemi

This book has been getting a lot of buzz and the reviews have been good.  That is why I bought it.  However, I felt the book was unusual but not interesting or engaging.

The story is about two gay men who are given a free "honeymoon" trip on a mysterious train by the aunt of one of the men.

The young man, relative of the aunt, was bounced around from one set of relatives to another as a youth as he was an orphan.  His aunt is the only one who seemed to care about him.  On one of the trips when he was travelling from one relative to another he is alone in a train car.  A man and his young daughter join him.  The young boy is attracted to the girl.  Later a woman joins them and attacks the man, if I remember because of some past history.  The man's daughter ends up killing the woman.

Back to the "present" the two young men board the train, destination unknown, with their pet mongoose.  While they are travelling they are upset to learn that the former boyfriend of one of them seems to have dropped in to visit the aunt.  They are suspicious of his motives.  While on the train a clown? gets on and the men get him tossed off

They are told they should make no effort to meet the owner of the train, a recluse.  They do meet her, find out that she plays the thermin and also has a mongoose.

As they tour the train they also run into a woman who is the girl who killed the woman on the train when the one man was a boy.  As the story progresses they learn that the recluse is isolating on the train because of a will she is close to inheriting.  If she can stay sane for a few more days she will inherit the wealth.  The man who is on the verge of leaving her the money had an adopted son (was he the clown) but decided to leave him nothing and leave the money to her.  The woman had come to the man's house to play the thermin during the night to comfort the son.

As the story ends it appears the woman has reached her deadline to inherit and the other people on the train can no longer see the young men....

Weird, no idea what the point of this story was.  I like unusual stories but this one didn't grab me at all.