Essay

In 1980, British novelist Lionel Davidson, best known for his crime thrillers, published an uncharacteristic children’s novel: Under Plum Lake. On the surface, it is a whimsical story about a 12-year-old boy who, exploring a sea cave, stumbles upon a hollow earth utopia beneath the ocean. But read closely, Under Plum Lake is something else entirely: a visionary parable about the trauma of anomalous experience, the ontological shock of encountering an alien reality, and the loneliness of returning from it with no one to believe you.