Banks states, ‘I’d built dams Frank would too, though with a slightly psychotic über-motif I’d constructed big home-made kites so would Frank, and use one as a murder weapon I’d indulged in the then not-uncommon and perfectly innocent teenage boy pursuits of making bombs, flame-throwers, guns, giant catapults, and more bombs Frank would too, though alone and with a more determinedly harm-minded intensity.’ As a result, the narrative feels grounded, as opposed to fantastical or overblown. In the preface, Banks states that ‘Frank is supposed to stand for all of us in some ways deceived, misled, harking back to something that never existed, vengeful for no good reason and trying too hard to live up to some oversold ideal that is of no real relevance anyway.’ Banks asserts that when writing this book, he mined his own past for ‘exaggerateable experiences.’ As such, the activities Frank engages in are believable and gently push the boundaries of how an ordinary rough-and-ready youngster would occupy themselves if they grew up in the middle of nowhere. If you have not read Iain Banks then this, his first novel, is not the place to start. Like the rest of us, Frank is strong-willed, adventurous, unique, sometimes prejudiced and delusional, and wrapped up in his own world. The many professional reviews added to the front of The Wasp Factory, by the publishers, show that this is not a book to be 'liked'. However, I would argue that what makes The Wasp Factory such a depraved and disturbing book is that, as readers, we are all able to see parts of ourselves in Frank. The majority of reviews I have read on The Wasp Factory tend to focus on Frank’s psychopathic or compulsive behaviour and pinpoint this as the reason why the book is so unsettling.

The wasp factory review