I knew from the moment I read the description that I would either love or hate In the Night Wood and there would be no in-betweens … and I kind of loved it?
So I’m calling this one a win. The book seemed to deliver everything that I had expected from the blurb: a pervasive eerie atmosphere, a depth and layer to the lore, magic realism, an open ending where you get to decide what really happened and how much is true.
In the Night Wood isn’t a particularly scary story, so if you’re hoping to shave a few minutes off your life, this isn’t going to do it for you. However, it’s a dark, eerie read that’s especially great this time of year.
*Thank you to Edelweiss and John Joseph Adams/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an eARC of this in exchange for an honest, unbiased review*
*All quotes are from an ARC copy and may not appear verbatim in the final version*
Title: In The Night Wood
Author: Dale Bailey
Publication Date: October 9, 2018
Publisher: John Joseph Adams/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Genre: Horror, Dark Fantasy, Myth & Folk Tales
In this contemporary fantasy, the grieving biographer of a Victorian fantasist finds himself slipping inexorably into the supernatural world that consumed his subject.
American Charles Hayden came to England to forget the past.
Failed father, failed husband, and failed scholar, Charles hopes to put his life back together with a biography of Caedmon Hollow, the long-dead author of a legendary Victorian children’s book, In the Night Wood. But soon after settling into Hollow’s remote Yorkshire home, Charles learns that the past isn’t dead.
In the neighboring village, Charles meets a woman he might have loved, a child who could have been his own lost daughter, and the ghost of a self he thought he’d put behind him.
And in the primeval forest surrounding Caedmon Hollow’s ancestral home, an ancient power is stirring. The horned figure of a long-forgotten king haunts Charles Hayden’s dreams. And every morning the fringe of darkling trees presses closer.
Soon enough, Charles will venture into the night wood.
Soon enough he’ll learn that the darkness under the trees is but a shadow of the darkness that waits inside us all.
❧ This book isn’t so much scary (despite being listed as horror) as it is just pervasively creepy, and I just adored the vibe.
I’m really not a fan of scary books that keep me up at night waiting for the ax murder to inevitably stumble upon us and brutally murder us in bed. How they found us, I don’t know, because not even service providers can seem to find our address when we sign up. But alas, obviously, they’re coming for me. It’s just a matter of time.
What ends up being so great about In the Night Wood is how the tone starts off as hopeful and increasingly becomes darker, more sinister. It’s not just a slippery slope; it’s a whole darn landslide.
This is where the magical realism comes into play: because creepy things tend to be explained away. Of course I didn’t see my dead daughter standing by the side of the road. Pshaw. I’m just … tired. Nervous? Definitely not creeped out, nope. Like most people, the characters try to rationalize the weird things happening around them, because who the frig wouldn’t? I mean, you know, until you just … can’t.
❧ No one in this is a particularly great character. Actually, they all kind of suck, which I love, because you know what? People suck.
It’s so endearing because they know they suck, and they’re trying not to suck, and hey, aren’t we all? Well, mostly. But the characters felt so realistic with their flaws, and it was refreshing to be able to relate to the worst in people while still hoping they overcome it.
Shall we count all the delicious ways these characters feel real?
✦ Grief is sometimes all-consuming, and getting over it can feel impossible
✦ Sometimes death seems easier than feeling
✦ Emotions are hard, yo
✦ Attractive people are attractive, even if you know you shouldn’t
✦ Blaming other people is really easy and tempting
✦ I mean, how much control do we really have over our lives?
✦ Sure, we could talk about our problems, but isn’t not talking more fun?
✦ No, I’m sure the lack of communication is fiiiine
✦ Everything’s fiiiine
If you’re going into this hoping to fall in love with the characters … you’ll probably be sorely disappointed.
They’re just not lovable, but they’re not supposed to be? I’m pretty sure that’s the point. Every single character in this is horribly ordinary with their flaws and their thoughts and their actions, and that’s part of what I loved about it.
On the flip side, they weren’t so awful that they made me want to start a Pinterest mood board for ways to hurt them.
… I mean, not that I would. That’s totally not a thing, right? Moving on.
Their pain felt real, and because they seemed like such normal people, I sympathized with these characters. Where they went wrong are all base things that are easy to relate to (grief, alcohol, lust, curiosity, pain, miscommunication).
❧ There’s this really meta thing going on where In the Night Wood is actually a story about a story where the things in the story actually happen … in the story.
Basically, it’s the book form of Inception, but less confusing, I swear. The novel actually gets its title from a novel in the book, written by Caedmon Hallow. A book that happens to be uber sinister and not at all appropriate for children, despite being a children’s story. Also, coincidentally, Erin Hayden is Caedmon’s descendant, and they’ve inherited the house the book was written in, and it’s definitely not a creepy old place, okay?
What this ends up doing is making a really interesting psychological dilemma as far as how much control do we really have in our lives, and how much has already been pre-written?
What if there are no coincidences, but rather, everything happens because it has to happen. Because we’re working towards a certain ending. Because we have a character arc. I thought this approach raised a lot of great questions. I’m a fan of novels that make you think about the bigger things in life.
❧ There are multiple ways the book can be taken, and part of the overall creepy vibe comes from the fact that the author makes you work: no answers are simply handed to you as blatant fact, and you, dear reader, get to decide what’s real and what’s not.
The supernatural elements and magical realism in In the Night Wood are so masterfully done where it can either be real or it can be another Bigfoot hunting extravaganza. It never comes out and says for sure, and all the creepy things can easily be explained away, if you so choose.
The ending is also very open, leaving the reader to really steep in their thoughts and use their own judgment to unravel what actually happened and where the characters go from there.
I’m normally not a huge fan of open endings, because I like things to wrap up sort of neatly in standalone novels. This one, though, I felt like it was complete enough. I had a sense of what I thought (or hoped?) was going to happen to the characters, and I found that satisfying. You know what? Nerts to authors. Who needs them?* I make my own endings!
*I need authors. PLEASE DON’T FORSAKE ME.
❧ The writing can really drag in places and, with it, the plot.
This book is so character-centric, and even though there’s some really nice, creepy foreshadowing, there are portions that just drag. Part of it may be a part of the writing style. Even though I did like the tone, it can be really cumbersome to read in some places.
❧ It took foreverrrr to find out what actually happened to Lissa Hayden, despite being teased multiple times every chapter, and once I did learn the truth … it was a bit underwhelming for me.
Guilt, I understand. Grief and mourning, I understand. Blaming others, even if it’s not their fault, I understand. Lissa, despite not actually being present in the book, is such a driving force in In the Night Wood and the actual details around her death are kept so guarded that I was expecting some big, culminating scene revealing a harrowing, disturbing turn of events.
What I got instead, without going into too much detail, was a fluke accident that could have happened to anybody, and I felt a little let down.
There was SO MUCH build-up around this event, and it’s essentially the catalyst for the entire book, so I was just expecting … more, I guess.
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