Inside the Bone Box review: Anthony Ferner’s dark, thought-provoking novella of marriage, medicine, and moral flaws

Synopsis:

Warwickshire author Anthony Ferner’s Inside the Bone Box follows Nicholas Anderton, a gifted yet overweight neurosurgeon whose life is crumbling both at home and at work. His marriage to Alyson, a lawyer battling alcoholism, is toxic and filled with mutual resentment. Nicholas’s own compulsive eating becomes a source of ridicule, clashing with the public image of a precise, disciplined surgeon. The story begins as Anderton faces mounting professional pressure, including a dangerous slip in his surgical work and the looming threat of a rival colleague eager to undermine him.

The novella uses neurosurgical imagery as a metaphor for Anderton’s emotional state — the skull as a “dark bone box” containing both the seat of human consciousness and the tightly locked pains of his personal life. Ferner weaves in questions about identity, free will, and whether human behaviour is just a product of biology. This introspection runs alongside the tense drama of professional scrutiny, marital disintegration, and the creeping fear of failure, giving the work both psychological depth and thematic richness.