My Dear Henry: 11/16/23

My Dear Henry by Kalynn Bayron (2023) is a retelling of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886). In the afterword Bayron mentions how when she first read the novel she was struck with the strong homophobic themes. So that's what she went with, and to further explore the sense of otherness, made the protagonist and Jekyll both Black medical students.

Utterson, a lawyer in the original, here is also a medical student, facing pressure from his father to succeed in a world that's set up to prevent him from being anything beyond a hauler of bodies. Henry Jekyll, as also a student, is studying in the shadow of his father who has managed to get a teaching position at the university through extraordinary means.

Soon after the men meet, the university conspires to keep them apart. Jekyll's father is let go and his son is expelled. Utterson, soon finds himself in a horrible, abusive job.

It's against the setting of Jekyll's disappearance and Utterson's untenable situation that the majority of this retelling is set. The set up is slower than the original, partially to reestablish the characters and partially to build up the historic setting.

Honestly, I was hoping for a greater divergence from the source material. That said, I appreciate where the author was coming from, especially after reading the afterword.

Four stars

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