"The Wasp Factory" is the story of sixteen year old Frankie Cauldhame who lives with his father on a small island in Scotland. Not your usual family not your usual read, and not your usual sixteen year old...
Frankie is a self confessed murderer, having killed his two cousins and his baby brother by the age of nine.
Frankie spends the days wandering the island, checking and adding to the sacrifice poles and consulting the wasp factory of the title, a kind of mechanical oracle that predicts the future (or so Frankie believes).
The story ambles along following Frankie's daily tours of the island, occasional underage drinking binges at the local pub with his only friend Jamie, and the time consuming dam building escapades and explosions that fill his days. As Frankie lives out his strange existence he learns that his brother, Eric, has escaped from a lunatic asylum. Eric is universally feared and hated by everyone on the island because of his habit of setting fire to dogs and tormenting young children.
All in all, an interesting, sometimes disturbing, occasionally darkly funny read.... I am not really sure how I would rate it, but it is definitely thought provoking, and I am very glad I finally picked it up and read it.
Oh, and in case you're interested:
A 1997 poll of over 25,000 readers listed The Wasp Factory as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century.
