WIDOW BY ​ROB BLISS: BOOK REVIEW

A mother and son are hunted by vindictive giant pigs!

As with many books I review, particularly with authors I do not familiar with, I read little about them in advance and dive straight in and see where it takes me. Rob Bliss’s Widow was such a novel; I was vaguely aware it concerned a woman and her son being stalked by a benevolent presence, but little else. Which it was, and it wasn’t, as the pair were repeatedly hunted by monstrous pigs which were the size of rhinos, who appeared in the middle of the night. That basic synopsis makes Widow sound very trashy, but it really is not, far from it. This was a very strange book and I doubt there is any single ‘correct’ interpretation of what it all means (which might also be nothing). I’m certainly not sure I understood it, and after the exceptionally bizarre ending I went right back to the start and read the first 10% again searching for a clue I might have missed which might provide more answers. The author should take that as a compliment. Ambiguity is an important part of the horror genre and Widow has it in buckets, but the next reviewer may well disagree with my interpretation. It’s just one of those books.
 
The story opens not long after the death of principal character Joan’s husband and she is then forced to move from home to home as they are repeatedly followed by entities which seem to be both hunting them and deliberately destroying the abode they have moved to. Crucially, before the death the family had a pig farm, whether this is the reason why the entities which stalk them take the form of giant pigs is open to question. It is never made clear how many times they have moved, but Joan’s son Joey, longs for a proper home again and as he also sees the pigs, it is clear the manifestations are not merely from the imagination of Joan.
 
There was something of the classic fairy-tale in Widow, or an inversion of it, where the little (hardly!) pigs become the hunters and destroy yet another house. Of course, in the Three Little Pigs story there is also a wolf, so make sure you hang in here for a howler of an ending! There were many very peculiar passages of action, for example, when an old truck driver gives Joan the key to live in his remote cabin (who would do that?) or when an armed policeman turns up at her cabin. It had a strange magical realism vibe to it and once in the cabin the mother and son become hunters themselves, literally overnight, killing for food.
 
Some readers may find the vagueness of it all frustrating; why were they being hunted at all? The mother repeatedly does strange stuff; at one point they build a house in a field made from hay-bales. Hang on a minute, didn’t one of the three pigs live in a straw house? I get the feeling not all of this was supposed to make sense. It that was deliberate the author surely nailed it! There are relatively few characters in the book, but the relationship between Joey and his mother was a real standout and the matter of fact way the little boy accepts the normality of being stalked by a giant pig was quite unnerving; “The house is gone, mommy. The piggy’s eating it,” he says before they hit the road once again. Widow is mainly written in the third person from Joan’s point of view, but it does move to Joey on occasions also.
 
I don’t want to say much more about Widow otherwise I’ll be heading into spoiler territory. It’s quirky, odd and a rather unique read which is likely to be one of those books which will both split the critics and frustrate readers. Having said that, I still found it oddly charming. Potentially it could have been developed into a more substantial work as so much is left unsaid. Does it have a deeper, more symbolic, meaning? Only Rob Bliss can answer that question. Or perhaps it is simply about a mother and son being stalked by giant pigs? I’m happy either way.
 
3.5/5
Tony Jones

When Joan's husband dies, she is forced to move with her young son, Joey, from home to home. But at each home, an evil follows, forcing Joan and Joey to move again and again, hunted.They never know why they’re being hunted. All they can do is run away from the constant threat until, hopefully, it gives up the chase … or they find a savior who can either end it, or help them to fight it forever."

---