A phone call is made to the police, but every subsequent phone call generates a message that the number isn’t in use. As the day passes parents notice their children have grown very quickly in a matter of hours, and when the corpse washes up on the shore some blame the man from Algeria. A number of other people then arrive at this remote shore area, a couple of family groups in cars, and others thereafter. He doesn’t stop to watch, but later sees that she appears to have died, possibly after hitting her head diving. The book begins as a man we later learn to be Algerian steps out of a cave to see a young woman swimming naked in the cove below. Is it an ecological fable? Is it a character study? Certainly the latter, as it appears to deal with humanity in microcosm, sharing out personality traits and concerns among the relatively few cast members. While the titular analogy is obvious, this isn’t a graphic novel that reveals its secrets, nor is any meaning very clear. The book ends with the baby born on the beach, now grown, alone and building a sandcastle.Sand Castle is a memorably creepy and disturbing meditation on the inevitability of death, which isn’t a topic that’s been widely explored in graphic novels. In Sandcastle, the possibility of the rapid aging being an experiment conducted on the characters is raised, and that theory is supported by a few minor details, but it’s never spelled out fully like it is in Old, making for a much more ambiguous read.
For a deeper dive into this zany ending-and the revelation of yet another new twist after the big reveal-my colleague Karen Han has written a useful breakdown. It turns out that the materials on the beach that cause the hyperaccelerated aging process are part of a deliberate experiment to test medicines meant to cure chronic diseases the aging process is necessary because the pharma company’s scientists want to ensure their medicines will last a human lifetime before releasing them for general consumption. Shyamalan’s character then heads back to the resort, where he walks through a pharmaceutical research lab featuring scientists at work on different experiments. This is documented by the man on the cliff, whom we discover is none other than Shyamalan’s character, who’s been keeping tabs on the families and reports back to the resort that though it seems Trent and Maddox almost found their way out, they likely have drowned.
He and Maddox swim out there, though Maddox then gets one of her clothes stuck on the coral. Trent remembers that Idlib left him some coded messages, which he translates-leading him to discover a potential escape route through a coral reef in the water. In Old’s ending, Trent and Maddox reflect on the past few days at the resort and then the beach. (This dynamic is prominent throughout the book, as he faces racist treatment by Charles as well this is likely meant to tie into the colonial history of France’s former hold over Algeria.) Robert claims he “didn’t like the look of that guy,” which prompts his wife to jokingly ask if he’s racist. He doesn’t speak to the family, but instead sneaks away to a shady enclave, where he discovers he has a nosebleed.
It’s then implied that he attempts to escape the beach, only to pass out in the field behind it Robert and Marianne’s family stumble upon his unconscious body there as they walk toward the beach. He voyeuristically shifts his vantage point to get another look at her, only to soon see her lifeless body float to the top of the water-all before any of the families get there. At the beginning, he emerges from sleep in a rocky cave on the side of the beach when he sees a young woman strip off her clothes to go skinny-dipping. In Sandcastle, the very first character to appear is an Algerian Kabyle jeweler whose name we never learn.
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