One thing that I’ve noticed, time and time again, is how damn good Neil Gaiman is at writing an ending. From Sandman to Neverwhere to The Graveyard Book, Gaiman wraps up his tales in such a soft, melancholic way that I can’t help but feel both satisfied in its closure and glad that I was a part of the journey. By the end of Ocean at the End of the Lane, I felt so connected, so viscerally involved in this short snippet of the characters’ lives, that any amount of absurdity that occurred, for me, felt real. And threatening. Gaiman crafts the story in such well-paced, powerful prose that each word marks a significant step in the development of both the unnamed protagonist as well as the tale itself, deeply drawing the reader into this story of growth and of beauteous innocence.

The story itself revolves around an unnamed fellow…