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Northwood
"Artfully explores themes of pain, desire, and the meeting place of the two, for a surreal, fairytale-esque accounting of what happens when we go to the darkest places within ourselves, and within others.” —NYLONPart fairy tale, part horror story, Northwood is a genre-breaking novella told in short, brilliant, beautifully strange passages. The narrator, a young woman, has fled to the forest to pursue her artwork in isolation. While there, she falls in love with a married man she meets at a country dance. The man is violent, their affair even more so. As she struggles to free herself, she questions the difference between desire and obsession—and the brutal nature of intimacy. Packaged with a cover and end papers by famed English artist Rufus Newell and inventive, white-on-black text treatments by award-winning designer Jonathan Yamakami, Northwood is a work of art as well as a literary marvel.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 6, 2018
21 people are currently reading
1451 people want to read
About the author
Maryse Meijer
9 books114 followersMaryse Meijer is the author of the story collections Heartbreaker, which was one of Electric Literature’s 25 Best Short Story Collections of 2016, and Rag, which was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Pick and a finalist for the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, as well as the novella Northwood. She lives in Chicago.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
November 10, 2019
Maryse Meijer’s novella, Northwood, is one of the most gorgeous and frightening set of poems that I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
Bound in a beautifully designed artistic red book with exquisite black pages and white font, this 102 pages of poems and prose is spectacular.
A young artist goes to a cabin in the dark woods and meets a married man. Dark and violent, their affair turns into obsession. Riveting, emotional, intense, and beautiful at the same time, this is a novella where pain becomes pleasure.
I don’t read poetry that often, but Northwood is a work of art. I loved the creative free form. Both fairy tale and horror this book of poems was a compelling reading experience.
Highly recommend.
5 out of 5 stars
A thank you to Ashley from catapult for sending me this gorgeous book in exchange for an honest review.
Publication due on November 6, 2018
Bound in a beautifully designed artistic red book with exquisite black pages and white font, this 102 pages of poems and prose is spectacular.
A young artist goes to a cabin in the dark woods and meets a married man. Dark and violent, their affair turns into obsession. Riveting, emotional, intense, and beautiful at the same time, this is a novella where pain becomes pleasure.
I don’t read poetry that often, but Northwood is a work of art. I loved the creative free form. Both fairy tale and horror this book of poems was a compelling reading experience.
Highly recommend.
5 out of 5 stars
A thank you to Ashley from catapult for sending me this gorgeous book in exchange for an honest review.
Publication due on November 6, 2018
December 20, 2018
Part of the allure of this book seems to be the endpapers and white on black print in the physical copy. I read it as an ebook, however, so I was left with only the words. Told in poems and short prose sections, the story is of a woman living alone in a cabin in the woods to explore her art. While there, she has an intense, violent affair with a married man. Her obsession with him clouds the rest of her life. Often raw and real, but not as mesmerizing as I expected.
November 24, 2018
Northwood is a novella told in beautifully written passages and free-verse poetry, about an artist who flees to the woods to pursue her artwork in isolation. What begins is a tainted, violent love affair with a married man—and the struggle between desire and obsession, and the brutal nature of intimacy. Meijer has crafted an eerie fable that combines fairy tales, mythology, horror, and mysticism into a strange and memorable experience. Fans of Grimm fairy-tales or Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado, Northwood is the next book you need to add to your list.
I found this to be not just a haunting story, but a riveting journey of a relationship that is conflicted when pain becomes pleasure, and seeking it out desperately despite the risks and impact it has not just physically, but mentally. Meijer creates world-building that is vivid and captivating, with complex and mysterious characters. I found that as the story progressed, the descriptions and character's mental stay show obvious signs of wither and become disorienting, as the obsession, violence, and desire conflicted and immersed with one another.
Between the beautiful, fiery prose and free-verse poetry and the exquisite style of white-on-black text bound in a vibrate red hardback, this novella is a piece of art. Meijer's writing is bold and atmospheric, it brings light to emotions and experiences—despair, brutality, desperation, love, vulnerability, and healing—unlike any other written word I have come across.
Thank you to Sarah from Catapult for sending me a copy in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions are my own.
I found this to be not just a haunting story, but a riveting journey of a relationship that is conflicted when pain becomes pleasure, and seeking it out desperately despite the risks and impact it has not just physically, but mentally. Meijer creates world-building that is vivid and captivating, with complex and mysterious characters. I found that as the story progressed, the descriptions and character's mental stay show obvious signs of wither and become disorienting, as the obsession, violence, and desire conflicted and immersed with one another.
Between the beautiful, fiery prose and free-verse poetry and the exquisite style of white-on-black text bound in a vibrate red hardback, this novella is a piece of art. Meijer's writing is bold and atmospheric, it brings light to emotions and experiences—despair, brutality, desperation, love, vulnerability, and healing—unlike any other written word I have come across.
Thank you to Sarah from Catapult for sending me a copy in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions are my own.
October 1, 2018
By turns a Grimm-like fairytale and a wholly persuasive first account of the violence a body can endure, Maryse Meijer's latest sets her apart in an ilk of her own — a fearless writer who can set fire to a wood with just the flick of the wrist. Behold, the Jean Grey of contemporary literature; watch her rise.
Northwood begins nearly before its finale — it's a flash moment from "Crone," but I'm convinced the novella starts here: in the "beetled dark” in which our narrator reaches for her pen, makes "a wish became a princess was saved by a steed." It's a peculiar inception but "here I am,” she says, “The bottom. The stone. The garden, in spring, a beautiful wedding.” Here we are: at the base of a rabbit hole where we've been made to think our narrator is doomed to die. What transpires beforehand feels like one great fever dream — or a nightmare, or a love affair, or an assault, or perhaps it’s just a sound — a crackle, bare feet and bare backs bracing against cold earth — or a wood as long and unending as a stream of consciousness.
Meijer draws her strength from where most novelists fear to go: from the gut. She does so most naturally in the way her narrator attempts to articulate the trauma she endures by the hands of her sadistic lover. Our narrator confesses this in "The Valley”: “My hand still trembles on the pen ... I still open my eyes when I come." From there it is all confession and recovery rendered to heartbreak and healing.
An intoxicating glimpse at the ways in which both the body and mind digests injury, Meijer's Northwood paints a reality in which pain blurs to passion, where pleasure and destruction can become precariously synonymous if we hold our eyes shut, our mouths closed just a little bit longer.
Review forthcoming publication @ Paperback Paris.
Northwood begins nearly before its finale — it's a flash moment from "Crone," but I'm convinced the novella starts here: in the "beetled dark” in which our narrator reaches for her pen, makes "a wish became a princess was saved by a steed." It's a peculiar inception but "here I am,” she says, “The bottom. The stone. The garden, in spring, a beautiful wedding.” Here we are: at the base of a rabbit hole where we've been made to think our narrator is doomed to die. What transpires beforehand feels like one great fever dream — or a nightmare, or a love affair, or an assault, or perhaps it’s just a sound — a crackle, bare feet and bare backs bracing against cold earth — or a wood as long and unending as a stream of consciousness.
Meijer draws her strength from where most novelists fear to go: from the gut. She does so most naturally in the way her narrator attempts to articulate the trauma she endures by the hands of her sadistic lover. Our narrator confesses this in "The Valley”: “My hand still trembles on the pen ... I still open my eyes when I come." From there it is all confession and recovery rendered to heartbreak and healing.
An intoxicating glimpse at the ways in which both the body and mind digests injury, Meijer's Northwood paints a reality in which pain blurs to passion, where pleasure and destruction can become precariously synonymous if we hold our eyes shut, our mouths closed just a little bit longer.
Review forthcoming publication @ Paperback Paris.
February 1, 2019
I was completely haunted by the experience of reading Northwood. It was a visceral experience and it captivated me to such extremes that I was forced to read this novel out loud, as if I was part of its performance, in order for me to capture the elements of the story. The book itself is a work of art, the words in white popping out of the black background. Reading this book was part Grimm-retelling, part novel verse and part something else of another genre entirely. I knew going in that this book was going to fascinate me and it truly did. A lot of the times I ask myself, what is the point of this book? With Northwood, I allowed myself to simply feel.
September 16, 2018
The next book club pick for the Chicago Independent Booksellers Book Club.
Intense, atmospheric, and deep. Like the most mesmerizing fairy tale of animals, backwoods, woman, and emotion spinning their wicked web. Not a big fan of poetry but this was marvelous.
Intense, atmospheric, and deep. Like the most mesmerizing fairy tale of animals, backwoods, woman, and emotion spinning their wicked web. Not a big fan of poetry but this was marvelous.
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January 16, 2023This one was a hard one to rate. It's pretty unconventional, which makes it challenging to objectively rate. The book itself is GORGEOUS. The black pages are something special.
Design aside, the story was totally engrossing. (Read: I read it in one session.) It was dark and biting, and I felt like the author did a good job of hitting the heavier themes. I appreciated the macabre/darker tones.
It felt a lot more like a book of thematic poetry than a fully-formed novella, but again, it's unconventional. I think I didn't particularly connect or love the story, but objectively speaking, it achieves what it's trying to achieve.
Design aside, the story was totally engrossing. (Read: I read it in one session.) It was dark and biting, and I felt like the author did a good job of hitting the heavier themes. I appreciated the macabre/darker tones.
It felt a lot more like a book of thematic poetry than a fully-formed novella, but again, it's unconventional. I think I didn't particularly connect or love the story, but objectively speaking, it achieves what it's trying to achieve.
October 28, 2018
This book is a dark take on the ever-growing-in-popularity free form poetry style. I really REALLY enjoyed it and am so thankful to Catapult & Black Balloon Publishing for sending me a copy to read in exchange for a review!
November 11, 2018
A very real and painful novella, but one that suffers deeply from cliche. Physically a very beautiful book--red hardback, with deep black pages and stark-white ink--the poetry does not quite live up to the artifact, regardless of how the text is oriented on the page (notably in "Labyrinth"). Each section expands the world slower through small moments, characters, and events: we see the speaker spend an afternoon walking a creek, a fourth of July party, an opening reception to her students' art pieces in a gallery, etc. But each section did not bring me closer to the character's trouble, did not pull at the empathic strings one would expect in a novella so deeply entrenched in heartache, a heartache that continues to push through the speaker in rather unhealthy ways. Ah, but how can heartache ever lead to healthy symptoms? Does it not linger on us like an unhealing bruise Yes, and no.
Meijer zeroes in on the one heartache, a young woman's time spent with a married man in a cabin in the woods, until he eventually leaves to go back to his wife and kids. Their relationship seemed purely sexual, with strong notes of (seemingly consensual, but at times incredibly foggy) violence that is left wanting on the speaker to the point where she forces it on future partners. This is the crater; the novella fills it unevenly. We are left looking over a choppy surface of cryptic caricatures ("The Woodcutter" is left to a boring teleology), painful adages ("if I could have seen the forest for the trees / if I could have seen the forest from afar and stayed afar") and wholly unsympathetic characters, stirred together with Tarot-inspired titling and unnecessary references to Greek mythology. This seems to fit more in line with the Rupi Kaur-esque movement of micropoetry, favoring stylish enjambment and bombastic sentences over poetic nuance. If that's your thing, then absolutely dive into Meijer's mythic heartache. I, however, did not have a taste for "Milk & Honey," and will shelve this under the same category of flavor.
Meijer zeroes in on the one heartache, a young woman's time spent with a married man in a cabin in the woods, until he eventually leaves to go back to his wife and kids. Their relationship seemed purely sexual, with strong notes of (seemingly consensual, but at times incredibly foggy) violence that is left wanting on the speaker to the point where she forces it on future partners. This is the crater; the novella fills it unevenly. We are left looking over a choppy surface of cryptic caricatures ("The Woodcutter" is left to a boring teleology), painful adages ("if I could have seen the forest for the trees / if I could have seen the forest from afar and stayed afar") and wholly unsympathetic characters, stirred together with Tarot-inspired titling and unnecessary references to Greek mythology. This seems to fit more in line with the Rupi Kaur-esque movement of micropoetry, favoring stylish enjambment and bombastic sentences over poetic nuance. If that's your thing, then absolutely dive into Meijer's mythic heartache. I, however, did not have a taste for "Milk & Honey," and will shelve this under the same category of flavor.
May 17, 2019
Phew! What an intense book. I've read a few books now that express dark passion in such a real, animal way. The kind of passion that makes you willing to throw your life, your safety, your body away. It's titled a novella, and it does feel that way, but more accurately it's a procession of narrative-ish poems. The story weaves in and out of reality and surreal fairy tales. It's a perfect impressionist piece of art. It's disturbing and provocative and mythical and sad but also beautiful. It's a wonderful way to spend a couple hours.
November 27, 2019
Well, that was strange and intense. This "novella" won't be for everyone. Repulsive, magnetic, and polarizing. Its subject matter is brutal, perverse, and alienating. Read it for yourself!! Meijer's in-your-face short story collection 'Rag' left a much greater impact on me, but there is no denying that this author is a force in literature. There's nobody quite like Maryse Meijer and that's exciting.
May 13, 2019
Dark and compelling, interesting in its structure and powerful perhaps in part because of its printing, white text on glossy black paper that takes a mark like skin does. It should be available here in the UK, but for some reason is not.
September 6, 2018
Maryse Meijer delivers an atmospheric, twisting journey into the woods and out again in a collection of poetry and prose detailing the journey of a young artist to a remote cabin in the midst of a dark forest and the affair she falls into. Wood, wolf, woodcutter, fox—fairy tale elements are present, echoing of the Red Riding Hood story, but cast in an unfamiliar light for us to examine anew. The mastery of Meijer’s collection is in how she finds beauty in the midst of despair and brutality, grace and healing in the journey onward. Hope, anguish, grief, despair, love—all are found in the pages of this book, which mirror the themes by presenting stark, white words on lush black paper.
August 19, 2018
Like flashlight Morse code signals in a dark forest, this story told in white-lettered poems on a black background is at once fragmented and whole, frightening and beautiful, ancient and modern. A unique reading experience, and one that offers new discoveries with each re-reading.
October 24, 2018
She Is Going To Be Huge! Two collections/books/novella/poems whatever you want to call it, two amazing works of art. Can. Not. Wait. For what’s next!
February 19, 2022
Lu en janvier 2019 et relu hier et ce matin. Toujours aussi bien.
January 3, 2021
I do pick them... another pretty sad and depressing tale, following not long after I read Vilas's Ordesa.
But this has a unique quality about it, in that it is told in short segments, often cryptic two page pieces of poetry, and other times in a block of text that reads like a usual page of fiction.
Struggling mentally with her father's suicide and her mother's terminal illness an artist decides to spend a year in a secluded cabin in the wilderness. She comes across an older man, and studies his figure. The man is abusive, and at first the artist is enchanted by this.
I'm pleased I read this, though I did struggle to interpret the language at times, and consequently for me, it had its highs and lows. Its a style of writing I can certainly admire, but without falling in love with..
But this has a unique quality about it, in that it is told in short segments, often cryptic two page pieces of poetry, and other times in a block of text that reads like a usual page of fiction.
Struggling mentally with her father's suicide and her mother's terminal illness an artist decides to spend a year in a secluded cabin in the wilderness. She comes across an older man, and studies his figure. The man is abusive, and at first the artist is enchanted by this.
I'm pleased I read this, though I did struggle to interpret the language at times, and consequently for me, it had its highs and lows. Its a style of writing I can certainly admire, but without falling in love with..
July 15, 2019
Ne znam što mi je ljepše: kvazi-špiljske črčkarije na krvavo-crvenoj naslovnici ili pak crne stranice ispisane bijelim slovima (koje sam - uzgred budi rečeno - okretao u zaštitnim rukavicama kako mi knjiga na kraju - zbog vidljivih otisaka prstiju - ne bi izgledala kao da se burek jeo nad njom). Sama radnja novele i kolažni način na koji je ispričana ne zaslužuje više od tri zvjezdice, ali estetika je - zajedno s osjećajem zbunjenosti i znatiželje koji je kod mene ostao i nakon čitanja - bila od presudnog značaja.
November 14, 2018
This is NOT like any other work you’ll find.
Much like the feverish words, which pulled me in from word one, the pages absorb the readers touch so that it’s impossible not to leave your mark on the matte black pages.
The narrator has no name, in fact there are no names mentioned. It is a collection of pieces about the body, two bodies in particular, but also the parts of other bodies these lovers run into when they are not together.
A woman goes to the woods to make art, and finds herself swallowed up by the woods in the arms of a man she collides with who’s touch forever inspires the art she creates, the life she goes on to lead.
Throughout the work it seems like the reader is meant to be swept away by the passion and violence the narrator endures, and yet it’s not always certain that any of this isn’t a dream.
Meijer flips the idea of white space on its head by filling that space with the color black; the things her narrator cannot speak aloud live in the dark opaque space like muddy water, cold and impenetrable.
This is a book made to be touched, it’s pages spotted with the dark oils of flesh. Yet, how miraculous is it that the book holds onto every reader, bearing their marks while we walk away feeling safe, out of the woods; our secrets safely buried.
Much like the feverish words, which pulled me in from word one, the pages absorb the readers touch so that it’s impossible not to leave your mark on the matte black pages.
The narrator has no name, in fact there are no names mentioned. It is a collection of pieces about the body, two bodies in particular, but also the parts of other bodies these lovers run into when they are not together.
A woman goes to the woods to make art, and finds herself swallowed up by the woods in the arms of a man she collides with who’s touch forever inspires the art she creates, the life she goes on to lead.
Throughout the work it seems like the reader is meant to be swept away by the passion and violence the narrator endures, and yet it’s not always certain that any of this isn’t a dream.
Meijer flips the idea of white space on its head by filling that space with the color black; the things her narrator cannot speak aloud live in the dark opaque space like muddy water, cold and impenetrable.
This is a book made to be touched, it’s pages spotted with the dark oils of flesh. Yet, how miraculous is it that the book holds onto every reader, bearing their marks while we walk away feeling safe, out of the woods; our secrets safely buried.
November 16, 2018
As much as I liked Meijer's first book, this one is even better. An utterly original combination of a dark fairy tale and a set of linked poems, this book is daring, beautiful and ferocious. Meijer deserves a wide readership; I hope she writes a full fledged novel soon.
February 6, 2019
Haunting, visceral, and claustrophobic, this freeform poetry/novella mashup is the perfect one-sitting read, about a woman struggling with her art and a violent, intense affair.
The black pages with white text also lend the book a dark and confining atmosphere, which for me perfectly complemented the unsettling narrative that was sometimes purposefully obfuscating.
Elements of fairytale (the woods, the woodcutter, once upon a time), Greek mythology (Adonis, Echo, Narcissus, the labyrinth), and tarot (Hermit, Priestess, Hierophant) blend together, creating a new mythology that belongs solely to this story. It is a hybrid tale, sort of like the format of the story.
This blending of myth with the real also offers a haunting dimension to the main character's experience. She hides in the woods, in the stories, unable to face the bleak reality she's woven for herself and now doesn't know how to be apart from, even when the affair itself is over. The story looks at how relationships, especially violent ones, can impact people over and over, emotionally, traumatically, internally.
Meijer is a true wordsmith; not one is wasted beneath her pen, and the most exquisite combinations and images are grafted to the page and then to your mind as you read.
This book is more an experience than just something to read.
My thanks to Catapult for sending me a finished copy of this one to read and review.
The black pages with white text also lend the book a dark and confining atmosphere, which for me perfectly complemented the unsettling narrative that was sometimes purposefully obfuscating.
Elements of fairytale (the woods, the woodcutter, once upon a time), Greek mythology (Adonis, Echo, Narcissus, the labyrinth), and tarot (Hermit, Priestess, Hierophant) blend together, creating a new mythology that belongs solely to this story. It is a hybrid tale, sort of like the format of the story.
This blending of myth with the real also offers a haunting dimension to the main character's experience. She hides in the woods, in the stories, unable to face the bleak reality she's woven for herself and now doesn't know how to be apart from, even when the affair itself is over. The story looks at how relationships, especially violent ones, can impact people over and over, emotionally, traumatically, internally.
Meijer is a true wordsmith; not one is wasted beneath her pen, and the most exquisite combinations and images are grafted to the page and then to your mind as you read.
This book is more an experience than just something to read.
My thanks to Catapult for sending me a finished copy of this one to read and review.
May 12, 2020
This short book of beautiful free verse poems tells a dark story about a woman living alone in a cabin in the woods. The book itself has gorgeous endpapers and the pages are white text on black paper. The woman has a violent affair while isolated in the woods, involving love, infidelity, being alone, abuse.
I rarely read things that feel this quote-unquote literary and it was a good change of pace. The tone and images reminded me of a graphic novel like Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann or Emily Carroll's Through the Woods.
I rarely read things that feel this quote-unquote literary and it was a good change of pace. The tone and images reminded me of a graphic novel like Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann or Emily Carroll's Through the Woods.
November 12, 2018
Not sure how to "shelve" this one. A mix of poetry and prose printed on matte black paper that gets stained by the heat of your hands. It's basically one long scream of pleasure and pain that begs to be read in one sitting and leaves you breathless at the end. I found it much more straightforward than the other reviewers. Though it has the same emotional impact as typical horror and utilizes some fairytale/mythological elements, I wouldn't categorize it as either. I'll be curious to see how it tastes when I re-read.
September 19, 2021
supremely beautiful and disappointing, but not in a bad way? sort of in the way that most books about women thinking about men are disappointing. no hot takes here except that the white-on-black text, while very cool, gave the book a chemical reek
October 5, 2019
love love love. the forest, the darkness, trying to recover oneself after love.
January 6, 2024
I wanted to like this more than I did. Haunting and lovely and definitely with many unique pieces to it, but ultimately it fizzled out the further I got into it.
April 2, 2022
Yes it took me a month to read this book. Yes it’s now one of my absolute favorites. It’s one of those books that need to be taken in slowly and needs recovery time afterwards. My favorite kind :,)
January 24, 2019
This was so, so good. Would I be as enrapt if the book's physical design was not so incredible? It's impossible to prove a hypothetical so we'll never know. Shelving this with intoxicating/mesmerizing books that pull you in completely.
November 24, 2018
Pure pleasure. A novella composed of verse and little blocks of prose, stitched together with fairy-tale metaphors. This slim book says more about desire, intimacy and violence than most novels.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews