His sister accuses him of throwing coins at her. One morning, the narrator wakes up choking on a coin. Ginnie somehow knows what the man wrote in his goodbye letter: He gambled away all his money and that of his clients, and he hopes they’ll forgive him.

The narrator’s parents rent out his room to boarders, one of whom, an opal miner, steals the family car and dies by suicide in its back seat. On the property is a pond that Lettie calls an ocean: She insists that, to get to the farm when she was a baby, she journeyed across its vastness. The farm supplies milk to local distributors. In the ancient farmhouse at the end of the lane live the Hempstocks: an 11-year-old girl, Lettie her mother, Ginnie Hempstock and her grandmother, Old Mrs. He visits an old farm and sits by a pond behind the farmhouse, where he remembers a series of extraordinary incidents that took place there when he was seven.Īs a young boy, the narrator lives with his parents and sister in a respectable home on an unpaved road. The narrator goes to the town where he grew up to attend a funeral. Though the novel’s Lexile score of 810L makes it accessible to fourth-graders, the subject matter and certain intense scenes suggest it may not be suitable for younger readers. This guide is based on the 2014 eBook version of the original edition.Ĭontent Warning: The Ocean at the End of the Lane depicts death by suicide, body horror, the attempted murder of a child, and other brief moments of violence. He has won more than 80 awards for his various works. Gaiman’s best-selling fantasy novel American Gods won 10 awards and has been adapted for the screen. He has also written and directed for film and television. Gaiman earned notice as the writer of the DC Comics series The Sandman and dozens of other comic books and graphic novels.

The ocean at the end of the lane novel