BOOK REVIEW: IN THE HOUSE IN THE DARK OF THE WOODS BY ​LAIRD HUNT

“Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods”

If you dig dark fiction which is tricky to categorise and leads the reader on a 210-page merry-go-round then Laird Hunt’s In the House in the Dark of the Woods might be the perfect choice for you. The plot is minimal, the characters distorted and it has a hallucinogenic quality which is highly stylised and deceptively simple. If this is not your brand of horror be warned; you may find this short novel to be a pretentious exercise in style over plot leaving you scratching your head by the time you reached the end, more confused by ever. This was one of those books where everything is not laid out on a plate and the reader is supposed to draw their own conclusion. I did indeed scratch my head, several times, but I still enjoyed my time with In the House in the Dark of the Woods. Or at least I think I did, it was one of those books.
 
The minimal plot is set in the colonial period of America, New England, and concerns a law-abiding Puritan wife who goes out for a walk in the encroaching forest. Boldly, she wanders further than usual and although there are signs things are not right she continues onwards and gets incredibly lost. When it comes to the plot there is not much more to say; the woman who is sometimes referred to as ‘Goody’ (although that is not her name) then meets a succession of other people in the forest. From here on in your interpretation of the story may differ from mine; does she keep meeting the same person? Over how long a period is it set? (days, months, years or longer….) Are any of the people she meets real or is it in fact her? Does she genuinely have a husband and son? Is she paying penance for something lurking in her past? The answers to many of these questions is anybody’s guess, including mine. Good luck trying to break it all down.
 
Much of it was just too vague for my taste. The forest was obviously haunted or cursed in some way and the underlying thread was of superstition and fear of witchcraft which was a crucial part of the story. Some details surrounding the Puritan lifestyle are dropped here and there but overall I found the vagueness and lack of historical detail to be frustrating and for the most part the story might have been set anywhere, but then again perhaps that was the point. 
 
The promotional material overhypes it slightly (doesn’t it always though?) comparing it to 20th Century masterpieces, including Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, it’s a fascinating book for sure, but does not deserve to be compared to the queen of the dark literary fairy tale. Other names dropped by way of comparison include Kelly Link and Joy Williams, however, the most obvious similarity was overlooked…. The 1935 Nathaniel Hawthorne short story Young Goodman Browne, where a young man gets lost in a New England forest during Puritan times and stumbles upon a gathering of witches. Hawthorne may well have inspired this novel with his basic premise, but Laird Hunt has a wild time developing it.
 
On her journey ‘Goody’ encounters a cast of odd characters; Captain Jane, Granny Someone and Eliza who may well symbolise something deeper and are connected to generations of different women in obscure ways.  Then there is the question of good and evil, in Puritan times this was very clearly defined, however, once in the woods this becomes incredibly blurred and the flashbacks to Goody’s married life make this even more confusing, as if there is evil present then it is probably within her. I’m getting confused even writing this, ultimately I found some of this just too obscure.
 
In the House in the Dark of the Woods is one of those marmite types of books and will probably pick up as many one-star reviews as it does five-stars. Even though it lacked serious scares it held my attention and I had a feeling from the outset it was going to be one of those ‘choose your own ending’ books. Some readers hate them, but if you fancy a dark, lyrical play on fairy tales then it is worth a closer look and you’ll zip through the 200 pages and then start questioning yourself all over again. It may well be a good choice for a book club as there is much material to chew the cud over.
 

Tony Jones

In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt

'A dark treat of a novel: lush, exciting and gorgeously strange' Sarah Waters

Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods.

In this disorienting horror story, a young woman sets off to pick berries in the depths of the forest, but can't find her way home again. Or perhaps she has fled or abandoned her family. Or perhaps she's been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the dense woods of the north. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman who offers her help. Then everything changes.

On a journey that will take her through dark woods full of almost-human wolves, through a deep well wet with the screams of men, and on a living ship made of human bones, our heroine may find that the evil she flees has been inside her all along.

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