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In the House in the Dark of the Woods
A dark fairytale, full of witchcraft, where nothing is as it seems
Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods.
In this dark fairy tale, 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 wilderness. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman who offers her help. Then everything changes.
On a journey that will take her to the depths of the witch-haunted woods, 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.
Laird Huntis an American writer and translator. He has written seven novels, including Neverhome, which was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection, an IndieNext selection, winner of the Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine and The Bridge prize, and a finalist for the Prix Femina Étranger. His In the House in the Dark of the Woods is also available from Pushkin Press. A resident of Boulder, CO, he is on the faculty in the creative writing PhD program at the University of Denver.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 16, 2018
512 people are currently reading
22869 people want to read
About the author
Laird Hunt
40 books515 followersLaird Hunt is an American writer, translator and academic.
Hunt grew up in Singapore, San Francisco, The Hague, and London before moving to his grandmother's farm in rural Indiana, where he attended Clinton Central High School. He earned a B.A. from Indiana University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He also studied French literature at the Sorbonne. Hunt worked in the press office at the United Nations while writing his first novel. He is currently a professor in the Creative Writing program at University of Denver. Hunt lives with his wife, the poet Eleni Sikelianos, in Boulder, Colorado.
Hunt grew up in Singapore, San Francisco, The Hague, and London before moving to his grandmother's farm in rural Indiana, where he attended Clinton Central High School. He earned a B.A. from Indiana University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He also studied French literature at the Sorbonne. Hunt worked in the press office at the United Nations while writing his first novel. He is currently a professor in the Creative Writing program at University of Denver. Hunt lives with his wife, the poet Eleni Sikelianos, in Boulder, Colorado.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,852 reviews
October 31, 2021
OH NO SPOOKTOBER IS WINDING DOWN
i did not like this book until i loved it. it was that quick a reversal.
it can be roughly divided into two sections: before you know what the fuck is going on, and after you (mostly) know what the fuck is going on.
and MAN, is that first part a drag. it’s a kinda-sorta colonial folk-horror with these weird lynchian vibrations running underneath it, just barely discernible. those rumblings were what kept the fingernails of my interest dug in, even when i started to doubt that they were really there; that i wasn’t just making something up to keep me engaged.
the story itself is pretty simple: a woman, answering to the generic olde timey new england 'name' goody, leaves her home to pick berries for her man and her son, gets lost in the woods, meets many strange people and experiences many strange things over the course of an indeterminate period of time. lather. rinse. repeat.
in tone, it’s more fairytale than horror-proper—the escalating oddness feels sinister, sure, but it’s decked out like a grimm’s tale; all pastoral bits and pieces with pigs and cows and bonnets and baskets and milk and honey. and yet even nature’s simplest pleasures can be a trap.
for all the flashes of interesting vibrational horror, there’s so much time spent establishing the more conventional fairytale tropes: the young woman lost in the spooky woods trying to get home, waylaid by an assortment of archetypical characters—human, maybe-human, animals, birds—requesting her to perform obscure tasks, errands, favors, to stay a little longer just a little, little longer etc., and the development of all of that means that the intriguing, unusual stuff is all but smothered under a “been there, done that” hash of fairytale décor and dialogue:
and it goes on like that for a really long time—the parts that aren't clichéd are confusing, circuitous, contradictory; episodes seemingly surreal for surreal’s sake with no assurance that there’s an actual plot waiting in the wings besides “shit is weird in the woods,” and even though it does get weirder and darker than your average grimmtale:
it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, just round and round down the same old paths, getting the reader as lost in the narrative as goody is lost in these woods, which mirroring is itself a literary cliché.
oh but THEN. then we are allowed into the WHY of it all and those vibrational rumblings crack the ground open with CONFIDENCE and you are the reader going WWWWOOOOAAAAAAHHHHH!! as you are toppled over with a firehose spray of exposition.
and it is rad.
rad but still slightly murky. do i understand ALL of this tiny little novel? nope. i love what i do understood, and what i don’t will stay with me as an intriguing mental residue that will be as pleasurable to contemplate as would be knowing all the answers.
******************************
tryna sneak one more horror read in under the month's end!
CLOSE ENOUGH! REVIEW TO COME!!
come to my blog!
"I help those I can. Those who stray into the wood and deserve helping."
"Do I deserve helping?"
"Of course you do, poor thing. How could you even ask?"
"It seemed easy to ask."
"You are tired."
"Some I saw this day were not helped."
"Not all deserve it. And need to be shown they don't belong here. That it is no longer their woods. Not anymore."
i did not like this book until i loved it. it was that quick a reversal.
it can be roughly divided into two sections: before you know what the fuck is going on, and after you (mostly) know what the fuck is going on.
and MAN, is that first part a drag. it’s a kinda-sorta colonial folk-horror with these weird lynchian vibrations running underneath it, just barely discernible. those rumblings were what kept the fingernails of my interest dug in, even when i started to doubt that they were really there; that i wasn’t just making something up to keep me engaged.
the story itself is pretty simple: a woman, answering to the generic olde timey new england 'name' goody, leaves her home to pick berries for her man and her son, gets lost in the woods, meets many strange people and experiences many strange things over the course of an indeterminate period of time. lather. rinse. repeat.
in tone, it’s more fairytale than horror-proper—the escalating oddness feels sinister, sure, but it’s decked out like a grimm’s tale; all pastoral bits and pieces with pigs and cows and bonnets and baskets and milk and honey. and yet even nature’s simplest pleasures can be a trap.
The honey was delicious, heavy gold with marks of comb and only here or there a leg or wing or who knows what else that had been pulled into the trickling swamp.
for all the flashes of interesting vibrational horror, there’s so much time spent establishing the more conventional fairytale tropes: the young woman lost in the spooky woods trying to get home, waylaid by an assortment of archetypical characters—human, maybe-human, animals, birds—requesting her to perform obscure tasks, errands, favors, to stay a little longer just a little, little longer etc., and the development of all of that means that the intriguing, unusual stuff is all but smothered under a “been there, done that” hash of fairytale décor and dialogue:
”I must go home when we have finished our meal together.”
“Straightaway home?”
“I cannot linger.”
“It must be very pleasant where you live. You must miss all that you have made there.”
“My husband has said that one day we will ring our house with roses and take our drink from golden cups.”
“And does he keep his promises, your good man?”
“As much as any other. We both do.”
“Then of course you can’t linger, Goody,” said Eliza. “Of course you can’t.”
and it goes on like that for a really long time—the parts that aren't clichéd are confusing, circuitous, contradictory; episodes seemingly surreal for surreal’s sake with no assurance that there’s an actual plot waiting in the wings besides “shit is weird in the woods,” and even though it does get weirder and darker than your average grimmtale:
"What have you given him? What did I give you?"
"You gave me a scream. One grown special in dark water, fed by word, dusted by night."
"A scream?"
"I am letting him warm it for us and show its worth. Let's see how very loud and lovely we can make him, shall we?"
it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, just round and round down the same old paths, getting the reader as lost in the narrative as goody is lost in these woods, which mirroring is itself a literary cliché.
oh but THEN. then we are allowed into the WHY of it all and those vibrational rumblings crack the ground open with CONFIDENCE and you are the reader going WWWWOOOOAAAAAAHHHHH!! as you are toppled over with a firehose spray of exposition.
and it is rad.
rad but still slightly murky. do i understand ALL of this tiny little novel? nope. i love what i do understood, and what i don’t will stay with me as an intriguing mental residue that will be as pleasurable to contemplate as would be knowing all the answers.
The world, I told him, was a grand thing as long as you stepped straight and kept to your course. If you did not, the world would hurt you. Or it would make you hurt yourself. He said he knew that already. I told him he did not know it in the way that I did.
******************************
tryna sneak one more horror read in under the month's end!
CLOSE ENOUGH! REVIEW TO COME!!
come to my blog!
Read
October 15, 2018Will. Leave this unrated as I will not finish after 50%. Have no idea what is going on and find I don't care enough to continue. For a while I was intrigued by the strangeness, but then it just became tiresome.
April 4, 2020
Book 25 of 30 for my 30 day reading challenge.
https://youtu.be/8CA3Ep_Z1-g
https://youtu.be/8CA3Ep_Z1-g
March 31, 2019
I told my man I was off to pick berries and that he should watch our son for I would be gone some good while. So away I went with a basket.
What drove me to read this book was the blurb from Brian Evenson, an author I admire, who described it as "wonderful, luminous and sly", and called it "a stunning contemporary fairy tale". And it's true - from the very first sentence we are transported into world that seems familiar at first, but soon begins to unveil itself in new, strange and disturbing ways.
Have you seen the 2015 film The Witch? Dubbed as A New England Folktale, it was the first thing that came to my mind while reading this book. The setting of the novel is never described in any great detail, but I could easily see it being set in the New England forests as shown in the film, and could imagine the heroine living a life which was not very different from that of its female protagonist. The novel is very different from the film, but if are interested in colonial America and its folklore, then you will love this book.
Many authors have written multiple novels featuring this subject before, but I'd wager that few of them did that with grace of Laird Hunt. His biggest accomplishment is his ability to use wonderful, lyrical language and create absolutely stunning, vivid and unsettling imagery. You do not as much read this book as you see it. From the beginning almost to the very end, every single page is filled with dark foreboding and absolutely oozes with atmosphere. I can't remember the last time I read a book which I enjoyed reading just for its lyricism and its ability to masterfully convey its setting and make me believe in it and feel as if I was almost there. You can hear the crunching leaves the heroine walks on, feel the unending forest closing in around her and feel the unease creeping up your own back.
Most negative reviews of the bookfocus on the novel's lack of focus and vagueness, and these complaints are not without merit. The novel is meandering and confusing, and usually I would agree with such criticism, but this time I felt that it actually added to the experience of reading it. The reader is never at ease and nothing is ever clear, just as no path is certain when we are lost in the woods. Most readers who will find it in themselves to actually read and finish this book will find many interesting themes to think about - how it alludes to stories and fairy tales from the past (most notably Hansel and Gretel, although it is not a retelling), how it presents the role and image of women in early colonial society, and most of all how it touches upon the nature of storytelling itself. Is it a powerful force, or something to be feared?
I don't want to spoil anything for anyone wanting to read this book, and to anyone wondering about doing so - do it! It is one of my most pleasant discoveries of 2018 and I will definitely be reading other novels by this author.
What drove me to read this book was the blurb from Brian Evenson, an author I admire, who described it as "wonderful, luminous and sly", and called it "a stunning contemporary fairy tale". And it's true - from the very first sentence we are transported into world that seems familiar at first, but soon begins to unveil itself in new, strange and disturbing ways.
Have you seen the 2015 film The Witch? Dubbed as A New England Folktale, it was the first thing that came to my mind while reading this book. The setting of the novel is never described in any great detail, but I could easily see it being set in the New England forests as shown in the film, and could imagine the heroine living a life which was not very different from that of its female protagonist. The novel is very different from the film, but if are interested in colonial America and its folklore, then you will love this book.
Many authors have written multiple novels featuring this subject before, but I'd wager that few of them did that with grace of Laird Hunt. His biggest accomplishment is his ability to use wonderful, lyrical language and create absolutely stunning, vivid and unsettling imagery. You do not as much read this book as you see it. From the beginning almost to the very end, every single page is filled with dark foreboding and absolutely oozes with atmosphere. I can't remember the last time I read a book which I enjoyed reading just for its lyricism and its ability to masterfully convey its setting and make me believe in it and feel as if I was almost there. You can hear the crunching leaves the heroine walks on, feel the unending forest closing in around her and feel the unease creeping up your own back.
Most negative reviews of the bookfocus on the novel's lack of focus and vagueness, and these complaints are not without merit. The novel is meandering and confusing, and usually I would agree with such criticism, but this time I felt that it actually added to the experience of reading it. The reader is never at ease and nothing is ever clear, just as no path is certain when we are lost in the woods. Most readers who will find it in themselves to actually read and finish this book will find many interesting themes to think about - how it alludes to stories and fairy tales from the past (most notably Hansel and Gretel, although it is not a retelling), how it presents the role and image of women in early colonial society, and most of all how it touches upon the nature of storytelling itself. Is it a powerful force, or something to be feared?
I don't want to spoil anything for anyone wanting to read this book, and to anyone wondering about doing so - do it! It is one of my most pleasant discoveries of 2018 and I will definitely be reading other novels by this author.
November 25, 2021
This book is a dream, captured on the page.
For some readers, that will be magic. The witchy, stream of consciousness anti-structure. The new twist on archetypal fairy tales. The imagery of a scream caught in the throat. A woman lost in the woods. The catharsis of transformation.
For others, it will be bewildering, bordering on nonsensical. You know the feeling when a child tells a story, and never gets to the point? Or when someone tries to tell you about their dream - except this one is 214 pages long - and it means a great deal more to them than it ever could to you.
I land somewhere in the middle here, sadly. I'm sorta wearied by these middling reviews of mine lately. Who do I think I am, anyway?? Sigh.
I think it falls a little too heavily in post-modernism for my liking. I was grasping and clawing for meaning, but Captain Jane, Granny Someone and Goodie weren't forthcoming. It must be said, though, that Laird Hunt is a lovely writer - and he's captured a dreamworld (or a nightmareworld) that holds many layers of self, particularly the female self. There is something powerful here for those who can find it.
If you let yourself get lost in these woods without worrying about the breadcrumbs disappearing behind you, this might be the book for you.
For some readers, that will be magic. The witchy, stream of consciousness anti-structure. The new twist on archetypal fairy tales. The imagery of a scream caught in the throat. A woman lost in the woods. The catharsis of transformation.
For others, it will be bewildering, bordering on nonsensical. You know the feeling when a child tells a story, and never gets to the point? Or when someone tries to tell you about their dream - except this one is 214 pages long - and it means a great deal more to them than it ever could to you.
I land somewhere in the middle here, sadly. I'm sorta wearied by these middling reviews of mine lately. Who do I think I am, anyway?? Sigh.
I think it falls a little too heavily in post-modernism for my liking. I was grasping and clawing for meaning, but Captain Jane, Granny Someone and Goodie weren't forthcoming. It must be said, though, that Laird Hunt is a lovely writer - and he's captured a dreamworld (or a nightmareworld) that holds many layers of self, particularly the female self. There is something powerful here for those who can find it.
If you let yourself get lost in these woods without worrying about the breadcrumbs disappearing behind you, this might be the book for you.
April 9, 2019
Absolutely Bizarre. I’m not quite sure what this all was supposed to be. Historical? Puritan/Colonial Witchcraft? Psychological horror?
It started off similar in style to Hansel and Gretel going off into the woods fetching berries and so this woman gets lost and the forest gets dark and looming and she’s thinking of “her man” and her son. All right, I got that far, but then....
The story turns abruptly and constantly, into nonsensical, confusing thoughts and actions, such as those one might experience on a drug induced hallucination/nightmare.
Captain Jane? Granny Someone? Red Boy? A living, flying aircraft made of living human skin and bones? What in the hell IS this???
The more I read, the more bizarre it became. I skipped pages closer towards the end, thinking there might some kind of an obscured revelation, and maybe there was (for some people?) but I was too detached and bewildered and just really wanted to be done with it.
A story and style that is definitely not for everyone. Few will “get it” and I was not one of those readers.
It started off similar in style to Hansel and Gretel going off into the woods fetching berries and so this woman gets lost and the forest gets dark and looming and she’s thinking of “her man” and her son. All right, I got that far, but then....
The story turns abruptly and constantly, into nonsensical, confusing thoughts and actions, such as those one might experience on a drug induced hallucination/nightmare.
Captain Jane? Granny Someone? Red Boy? A living, flying aircraft made of living human skin and bones? What in the hell IS this???
The more I read, the more bizarre it became. I skipped pages closer towards the end, thinking there might some kind of an obscured revelation, and maybe there was (for some people?) but I was too detached and bewildered and just really wanted to be done with it.
A story and style that is definitely not for everyone. Few will “get it” and I was not one of those readers.
October 24, 2018
Strange read....confusing narrative....difficult to find a focal point or become interested in a character or direction of plot. Almost called it quits a couple of times. Gave it my all though re-reading pages and chapters bc of enticing book summary depicting witchcraft in colonial New England, but a no-go and a long 224 pages for me. Honestly, no clue I was even in colonial America.
Thank you NetGalley and Little Brown and Company for the arc in exchange for my honest review.
September 17, 2021
If the Grimm Brothers and Nathaniel Hawthorne met at a bar, got fall-down drunk and decided to write their own version of Alice in Wonderland, the result would look something like this.
First, ignore the book blurb; the blurb is bullshit. Maybe there was another draft of this book and the blurb was based on that. Most of that stuff isn't in the book at all, and a lot of it was just implied. It paints a very different picture of the story than the one we got. It also isn't horror, psychological or otherwise. It comes across as a fairy tale with delusions of darkness.
Maybe the problem is me. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand the story the author was trying to tell. I kept getting the feeling that the book is a metaphor for something, but I'm just not clever enough to tease out the meaning. To me, the book was just a rambling mess. I was lost way more often than found. I get the basic idea of what's going on, but everything in between left big question marks floating over my head.
I didn't really hate the book, but I didn't really not hate it either. I was just happy to finish it and move on to something I like better. Don't let me scare you off, because I really feel like this is a case of "it's not you, it's me."
First, ignore the book blurb; the blurb is bullshit. Maybe there was another draft of this book and the blurb was based on that. Most of that stuff isn't in the book at all, and a lot of it was just implied. It paints a very different picture of the story than the one we got. It also isn't horror, psychological or otherwise. It comes across as a fairy tale with delusions of darkness.
Maybe the problem is me. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand the story the author was trying to tell. I kept getting the feeling that the book is a metaphor for something, but I'm just not clever enough to tease out the meaning. To me, the book was just a rambling mess. I was lost way more often than found. I get the basic idea of what's going on, but everything in between left big question marks floating over my head.
I didn't really hate the book, but I didn't really not hate it either. I was just happy to finish it and move on to something I like better. Don't let me scare you off, because I really feel like this is a case of "it's not you, it's me."
March 25, 2018
I'm developing a bit of a habit of reading books about witches and primeval woodland magic. In the vein of traditional, heavily symbolic folk tales about the sonorant evil that lives in the deep forest, this story is about the unstoppable transformations that happen to women when they leave their hearths. Here be magic birds, killer swarms, tepid wells, glamor magic, hags, and the blackest magic of all: memory.
While there isn't so much a "story" in these pages, there is rather an unquantifiable, foreboding atmosphere that you could cut with a knife. But I warn you, it's going to bleed. If you loved The Good People or A Secret History of Witches, you'll devour this book like the ravenous crone you are.
I read an early digital manuscript that I obtained as an employee of Hachette Book Group.
While there isn't so much a "story" in these pages, there is rather an unquantifiable, foreboding atmosphere that you could cut with a knife. But I warn you, it's going to bleed. If you loved The Good People or A Secret History of Witches, you'll devour this book like the ravenous crone you are.
I read an early digital manuscript that I obtained as an employee of Hachette Book Group.
December 23, 2018
Using traditional fairy tale elements, Hunt tells a story that starts with fairy-tale calm and rapidly descends into madness and horror.
The novel strongly recalls the work of the great German Romantics, in a way I never would have guessed a modern author could evoke. One of my favorite reads of all time is Der blonde Eckbert by German Romantic author Ludwig Tieck. Hunt's short novel exploits channels of feeling that are probably instinctive in us humans, such a fear dark places and of unknown enemies--feelings that are plumbed in fairy tales all over the world. But in this novel there is no happy ending. The irrational wins. What we think of as reality is revealed to be an illusion, and what is really-real is a world filled with irrational rules, rules that have nothing to do with human morals or human sympathy, and where terror is lurking just beneath the veil of calm that we fool ourselves into believing, just so we can continue living.
The flat calm tone of the narrator makes the outcome all the more terrifying. She continues to believe in the goodwill of all those she meets, and to believe in her own innocence. in the end she is implicated deeply in her own fate, in a way that again evokes the great German Romantics, who also wrote stories in which everyone gets what is coming to them.
There is so much going on here. Let the story lead you. It's an eerie and unexpected journey all the way.
The novel strongly recalls the work of the great German Romantics, in a way I never would have guessed a modern author could evoke. One of my favorite reads of all time is Der blonde Eckbert by German Romantic author Ludwig Tieck. Hunt's short novel exploits channels of feeling that are probably instinctive in us humans, such a fear dark places and of unknown enemies--feelings that are plumbed in fairy tales all over the world. But in this novel there is no happy ending. The irrational wins. What we think of as reality is revealed to be an illusion, and what is really-real is a world filled with irrational rules, rules that have nothing to do with human morals or human sympathy, and where terror is lurking just beneath the veil of calm that we fool ourselves into believing, just so we can continue living.
The flat calm tone of the narrator makes the outcome all the more terrifying. She continues to believe in the goodwill of all those she meets, and to believe in her own innocence. in the end she is implicated deeply in her own fate, in a way that again evokes the great German Romantics, who also wrote stories in which everyone gets what is coming to them.
There is so much going on here. Let the story lead you. It's an eerie and unexpected journey all the way.
June 13, 2019
Over the last couple of months, I have been allowing my reading choices to be influenced a lot more by others - doing buddy reads and group reads, and reading based on friend recommendations - and it's been a (mostly) positive experience. Some have been duds, but some I've really enjoyed, like this book. Which is a little surprising to me, because by all accounts, I should be in the NOPE camp on this one, seeing as how I'm generally not a fan of weirdness for the sake of weirdness.
But something about this just worked for me. There's a LAYERED quality to the unreliability of the narrative and the story, and the feel of it is so jagged. I just loved it. This book reads like a discordant fist slammed on piano keys, and yet, something about it just works and I was intrigued.
I read this in two sittings. Half of the book one day, and then the back half 3 days later. I hadn't meant to take a break in between - I had intended to read it all the way through in one sitting, but life gets in the way sometimes. But I mention this because where I paused, literally at the halfway point, was immediately after a dramatic event happened, and the page turn to follow would tell me what happened. I spent those days wondering, dwelling on what would happen, how the situation could be resolved. When I got back to the book, I picked up where I left off, and yet... I didn't. It didn't. We had fallen down a well, and into somewhere else.
So I finished the book, and then... I thought about it. I'm still thinking about it two days later. Yesterday night, as I was in bed, on the edge of sleep, this crazy rush of thoughts came to me about this book, and I had to get out of bed and write them down so that they'd stop spiraling in my brain. And that, my friends, is how I know that this is a good book. It won't get out of my head.
This book reminded me a lot of one of my favorite books of last year - A Head Full of Ghosts. I loved the way that both of these books were so untrustworthy and fluid. Our experiences, as the reader, are as much a part of the story as anything written on the page, and because of that, we see what we want and expect to see. I loved both of these books for the way that it made me kind of tilt my head and squint my eyes and try to see what ELSE is there behind what we're shown.
This book, on the surface, is simple. A Puritan woman walks into the woods to find berries for her family. What happens to her there, if she was really ever there at all, is anything but simple. There's a tone of foreboding throughout that warns us that something is not right here, yet, our narrator is so obliviously upbeat and optimistic and hopeful that maybe it will be OK. She's a frustrating character at times, our narrator. She often speaks in riddles, and doesn't like to look too closely at what's really in front of her. She's a dreamer, and this story is very dreamlike. One minute you're walking on the beach, and the next you're standing in the middle of a field holding a dripping hatchet and none of us knows the path that led here, or what any of it means. But I loved it for that.
This book is about being lost, and trapped. It's about ways that we take action to help ourselves, and yet ruin ourselves still further. It's about the ways that we try to free ourselves, and only get mired more and more into the muck. It's about the ways that we turn into that which we fear. It's about desperation, and vindication, and revenge, freedom. It's about sacrifice and friendship and hope for redemption and hope for release. It's about finding ones voice, and learning that it was a scream all along. It's about all of that, and probably none of it.
I have been in a very feminist frame of mind lately, and couldn't help but see it from that perspective. That's what my experiences brought to the table with me as I read, and as such, I saw patterns and hints that reinforced my thought process and led me further down that path. But, I think that this book is like that. If you were to read it from a different perspective, you'd see, and have reinforced, whatever it is you're now looking for. And that is fucking magical.
I loved the ethereal quality of this book, how it shifts and bends and is never quite what it seems. It's like a fractal, in that the closer you look, the more there is to see.
But something about this just worked for me. There's a LAYERED quality to the unreliability of the narrative and the story, and the feel of it is so jagged. I just loved it. This book reads like a discordant fist slammed on piano keys, and yet, something about it just works and I was intrigued.
I read this in two sittings. Half of the book one day, and then the back half 3 days later. I hadn't meant to take a break in between - I had intended to read it all the way through in one sitting, but life gets in the way sometimes. But I mention this because where I paused, literally at the halfway point, was immediately after a dramatic event happened, and the page turn to follow would tell me what happened. I spent those days wondering, dwelling on what would happen, how the situation could be resolved. When I got back to the book, I picked up where I left off, and yet... I didn't. It didn't. We had fallen down a well, and into somewhere else.
So I finished the book, and then... I thought about it. I'm still thinking about it two days later. Yesterday night, as I was in bed, on the edge of sleep, this crazy rush of thoughts came to me about this book, and I had to get out of bed and write them down so that they'd stop spiraling in my brain. And that, my friends, is how I know that this is a good book. It won't get out of my head.
This book reminded me a lot of one of my favorite books of last year - A Head Full of Ghosts. I loved the way that both of these books were so untrustworthy and fluid. Our experiences, as the reader, are as much a part of the story as anything written on the page, and because of that, we see what we want and expect to see. I loved both of these books for the way that it made me kind of tilt my head and squint my eyes and try to see what ELSE is there behind what we're shown.
This book, on the surface, is simple. A Puritan woman walks into the woods to find berries for her family. What happens to her there, if she was really ever there at all, is anything but simple. There's a tone of foreboding throughout that warns us that something is not right here, yet, our narrator is so obliviously upbeat and optimistic and hopeful that maybe it will be OK. She's a frustrating character at times, our narrator. She often speaks in riddles, and doesn't like to look too closely at what's really in front of her. She's a dreamer, and this story is very dreamlike. One minute you're walking on the beach, and the next you're standing in the middle of a field holding a dripping hatchet and none of us knows the path that led here, or what any of it means. But I loved it for that.
This book is about being lost, and trapped. It's about ways that we take action to help ourselves, and yet ruin ourselves still further. It's about the ways that we try to free ourselves, and only get mired more and more into the muck. It's about the ways that we turn into that which we fear. It's about desperation, and vindication, and revenge, freedom. It's about sacrifice and friendship and hope for redemption and hope for release. It's about finding ones voice, and learning that it was a scream all along. It's about all of that, and probably none of it.
I have been in a very feminist frame of mind lately, and couldn't help but see it from that perspective. That's what my experiences brought to the table with me as I read, and as such, I saw patterns and hints that reinforced my thought process and led me further down that path. But, I think that this book is like that. If you were to read it from a different perspective, you'd see, and have reinforced, whatever it is you're now looking for. And that is fucking magical.
I loved the ethereal quality of this book, how it shifts and bends and is never quite what it seems. It's like a fractal, in that the closer you look, the more there is to see.
September 15, 2021
In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt starts out interesting to give you some Blair Witch vibes as the world around you is being built. It’s written in a rather unique way that at first takes some getting used to but eventually just leaves you confused and debating if you even want to finish this book after getting a few chapters in.
The characters are confusing and this book suffers from not having a definitive path towards what exactly makes this a horror book. Do we have witches here? Werewolves? Evil spirits? Horrific forest creatures? What exactly? You’re left guessing throughout and in my reading experience here, as I won’t ruin anything for you, there are two main parts in this book that just happens out of nowhere and makes absolutely zero sense. It happens in the middle and in the end as it’s just one big mess that, once you finish reading, will leave you very confused.
I give this book 1/5 stars as it was pretty bad despite a decent opening. It’s kind of like a horror fairy tale but doesn’t deliver where it matters most to make it scary or even memorable. Without having names to some of the characters early on and those two major confusing parts as you read, it’s one big dud in my opinion. I would not recommend this to anyone as it was a chore to read and I just wanted to be done with it already towards the end.
The characters are confusing and this book suffers from not having a definitive path towards what exactly makes this a horror book. Do we have witches here? Werewolves? Evil spirits? Horrific forest creatures? What exactly? You’re left guessing throughout and in my reading experience here, as I won’t ruin anything for you, there are two main parts in this book that just happens out of nowhere and makes absolutely zero sense. It happens in the middle and in the end as it’s just one big mess that, once you finish reading, will leave you very confused.
I give this book 1/5 stars as it was pretty bad despite a decent opening. It’s kind of like a horror fairy tale but doesn’t deliver where it matters most to make it scary or even memorable. Without having names to some of the characters early on and those two major confusing parts as you read, it’s one big dud in my opinion. I would not recommend this to anyone as it was a chore to read and I just wanted to be done with it already towards the end.
October 12, 2025
I first read this about five years ago and absolutely RAVED about it. I was going through my shelves and decided to reread it. And it goes to show how much your reading tastes can change in five years because I just didn’t see why I was so wowed by it originally. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t anywhere near as good as what I was expecting from my first review.
Read
February 11, 2021I had a conflicted reaction to this book, most of the details of which I describe below within spoiler tags since, in my opinion, this is a book best read cold. On one hand, I found it at times compulsively readable, which in these days when I often struggle to read for more than 15 minutes at a time is something to be thankful for. On the other hand, the book irritated me with what felt like its barrage of stylistic affectations. And then there was the premise, which Hunt slow-reveals in bread-crumb form. Once its full shape emerged, though, I found it highly problematic .
Now it’s entirely possible that Hunt structured this premise in order to offer a commentary on patriarchy (in the early colonial period of New England and/or more generally across history). It’s also possible to read the entire book purely on an allegorical level (though this didn’t work for me). Hunt seems to have deliberately blurred his story to the degree that readers can take what they want from it. I respect that and I like this element of the book...to a point (as I explain further on). It’s just that I can’t get past the premise and how it colored my reading experience.
I’m actually curious as to how I would react to the book if it had been written by a woman. Would I see its cynicism and misogynistic overtones as somehow more valid from the standpoint of critique? Quite possibly. As one readily apparent example, Anna Kavan strikes me as a woman writer who to my mind quite successfully depicted similar thematic material around male-to-female abuse, male control over women, and subsequent trauma of both. I do know that I often have trouble with male writers exploring this kind of territory in fiction. I am more likely to (consciously or not) question their motivations. Even though it’s fiction and I’m not in the habit of passing judgment on authors for what they write in fictional works, there are certain circumstances where a book fails for me because of how the writer chose to approach the themes. This particular book’s thematic treatment of abuse and trauma is muddied by the clutter of its stylistic adornments, and there are some very sharp objects hidden in that mud. That their significance is not adequately explored is, in my opinion, a serious detriment to the narrative.
On another note, I always find it amusing to read reviews on this site of books that don’t follow a straightforward narrative, yet that somehow have found their way into the hands of readers who expect their plot served up in front of them on a silver platter. Never mind that in this case if you read carefully enough (and prefer to take the narrative on a literal level, as opposed to an allegorical one) all significant plot points are indeed explained (even rather explicitly toward the end)—from each of the characters' back stories to the stages of metamorphosis each 'character' undergoes . Anyway, I can see why authors on Goodreads would get annoyed if a slew of one- and two-star ratings by readers with tons of friends and followers 'liking' their reviews skews a book’s ratings simply because said readers didn’t 'understand' a book or thought it was 'too confusing'. It just serves to underscore the ridiculousness of star ratings in general.
Now it’s entirely possible that Hunt structured this premise in order to offer a commentary on patriarchy (in the early colonial period of New England and/or more generally across history). It’s also possible to read the entire book purely on an allegorical level (though this didn’t work for me). Hunt seems to have deliberately blurred his story to the degree that readers can take what they want from it. I respect that and I like this element of the book...to a point (as I explain further on). It’s just that I can’t get past the premise and how it colored my reading experience.
I’m actually curious as to how I would react to the book if it had been written by a woman. Would I see its cynicism and misogynistic overtones as somehow more valid from the standpoint of critique? Quite possibly. As one readily apparent example, Anna Kavan strikes me as a woman writer who to my mind quite successfully depicted similar thematic material around male-to-female abuse, male control over women, and subsequent trauma of both. I do know that I often have trouble with male writers exploring this kind of territory in fiction. I am more likely to (consciously or not) question their motivations. Even though it’s fiction and I’m not in the habit of passing judgment on authors for what they write in fictional works, there are certain circumstances where a book fails for me because of how the writer chose to approach the themes. This particular book’s thematic treatment of abuse and trauma is muddied by the clutter of its stylistic adornments, and there are some very sharp objects hidden in that mud. That their significance is not adequately explored is, in my opinion, a serious detriment to the narrative.
On another note, I always find it amusing to read reviews on this site of books that don’t follow a straightforward narrative, yet that somehow have found their way into the hands of readers who expect their plot served up in front of them on a silver platter. Never mind that in this case if you read carefully enough (and prefer to take the narrative on a literal level, as opposed to an allegorical one) all significant plot points are indeed explained (even rather explicitly toward the end)—from each of the characters' back stories to the stages of metamorphosis each 'character' undergoes . Anyway, I can see why authors on Goodreads would get annoyed if a slew of one- and two-star ratings by readers with tons of friends and followers 'liking' their reviews skews a book’s ratings simply because said readers didn’t 'understand' a book or thought it was 'too confusing'. It just serves to underscore the ridiculousness of star ratings in general.
May 11, 2020
If there is a meaning or message in this strange and peculiar story, I missed it. At first I thought it was almost like a macabre Alice in Wonderland with Goody (which is the only giveaway that this was in early Puritan New England), wandering into the woods instead of down a rabbit hole. Is it truly madness she has descended into or is she been lured by a witch or witches? I don't really care. The writing is good but just being bizarre (i.e. a flying ship made of human skin) doesn't hook me if there really isn't a point to it all. As this is a relatively short book, you can finish it if you are mildly curious to see if anything comes of it all.
October 24, 2018
Update: I want to clarify that this book is definitely objectively better than 1 Star. But I still hold that my experience of reading it was so disappointing that I’m sticking to this low rating.
***
I have no idea what I just read. Obscure fiction works for me sometimes, but this was just too much. I couldn’t wait for it to end and I’m so glad to be done with it that I can’t even be bothered to write a full review. The writing itself is good, but I hated the experience of reading this so much.
***
I have no idea what I just read. Obscure fiction works for me sometimes, but this was just too much. I couldn’t wait for it to end and I’m so glad to be done with it that I can’t even be bothered to write a full review. The writing itself is good, but I hated the experience of reading this so much.
October 24, 2025
3.5 rounded up
Reminded me of Neil Gaiman's work, but more opaque.
Reminded me of Neil Gaiman's work, but more opaque.
December 10, 2018
We read this one in two sittings. It's quite unlike many things we've read before. It is definitely not for the faint of heart or stomach. It is also somehow remnant of witch tales we grew up with. That's what we really loved about it. It's spooky, but also curious.
March 22, 2023
I am confused but the vibes are immaculate
October 1, 2025
1.5☆
This is as much a horror novel as my seven pound, geriatric, toothless Maltese is a Werewolf. And, this novel is also toothless. If anything it is strange, meandering and quite dull.
The only reason I finished reading it was because I kept hoping something would happen. Nothing happened.
This is as much a horror novel as my seven pound, geriatric, toothless Maltese is a Werewolf. And, this novel is also toothless. If anything it is strange, meandering and quite dull.
The only reason I finished reading it was because I kept hoping something would happen. Nothing happened.
January 19, 2020
THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW. BUT I DON'T THINK YOU SHOULD CARE ENOUGH TO AVOID THEM, SO I DIDN'T HIDE THEM. READER, BEWARE.
I really liked the idea of this book. Because, well, what can I say? I like witches. The Crucible is one of my favorite pieces of American literature, and the 2015 film The VVitch is 🔥🔥🔥. More than that though, I'm into the idea of Puritan girls being like "f*ck it" and seizing power/independence in the only way they knew how--ways that led to accusations of witchcraft (Salem) and/or actual witchcraft (The VVitch ...spoiler alert). (I've also always liked the idea of an empowered biblical Eve being like 🖕🖕 to Adam and his precious garden and animal names, so maybe this stems back to childhood angst in Sunday School.)
In any case, despite a compelling--albeit obvious--twist and some genuinely startling imagery (i.e. a flying cart made of human skin and bones; well-water so foul and thick you could write your name in the scum; hair that "hangs in fatty clumps"), this fairytale-style novel misses its mark. While I liked the idea of this book, I didn't like the book itself. (But not because, as so many reviews nonsensically contend, the plot is nonlinear or hard to follow. It's very straightforward... just kind of weird and boring.)
For one thing, the narrator is so naive for so much of the novel that it's hard to care about what happens to her. (And since the novel is told from her first-person POV, the revelations near the end certainly cause tension but also don't make sense since there was no prior reason to think her unreliable.) And in a story that turns out to be cyclical--with one woman moving into the role of another by force or by design--there also didn't seem to be any significance behind the roles of Captain Jane and Granny Someone. Like, witches, Satan, Hope? Got it. Fits the fairytale. Magical pirate-explorer-witch who lends advice but also wields giant swarms of bees and steals everything from the older, stronger, bestest witch? I'm not remembering this archetype.
But my main issue (apart from the pretty boring narration) is the novel's takeaway. In this world, women become witches not to satisfy a need for power or independence and not, as we're kind of led to infer throughout the tale, to seek revenge for past abuse. They become witches because they're bad, and other older witches manipulate and kidnap them for Red Boy, the devil-figure. Red Boy tortures them, they learn magic, and after finally escaping Red Boy by luring in and sacrificing another woman, they decide to stay in "the game." So yeah, basically some dude does this to them but also they definitely deserve it. And it's like, cool story, Laird. I just don't care. 🙄
I really liked the idea of this book. Because, well, what can I say? I like witches. The Crucible is one of my favorite pieces of American literature, and the 2015 film The VVitch is 🔥🔥🔥. More than that though, I'm into the idea of Puritan girls being like "f*ck it" and seizing power/independence in the only way they knew how--ways that led to accusations of witchcraft (Salem) and/or actual witchcraft (The VVitch ...spoiler alert). (I've also always liked the idea of an empowered biblical Eve being like 🖕🖕 to Adam and his precious garden and animal names, so maybe this stems back to childhood angst in Sunday School.)
In any case, despite a compelling--albeit obvious--twist and some genuinely startling imagery (i.e. a flying cart made of human skin and bones; well-water so foul and thick you could write your name in the scum; hair that "hangs in fatty clumps"), this fairytale-style novel misses its mark. While I liked the idea of this book, I didn't like the book itself. (But not because, as so many reviews nonsensically contend, the plot is nonlinear or hard to follow. It's very straightforward... just kind of weird and boring.)
For one thing, the narrator is so naive for so much of the novel that it's hard to care about what happens to her. (And since the novel is told from her first-person POV, the revelations near the end certainly cause tension but also don't make sense since there was no prior reason to think her unreliable.) And in a story that turns out to be cyclical--with one woman moving into the role of another by force or by design--there also didn't seem to be any significance behind the roles of Captain Jane and Granny Someone. Like, witches, Satan, Hope? Got it. Fits the fairytale. Magical pirate-explorer-witch who lends advice but also wields giant swarms of bees and steals everything from the older, stronger, bestest witch? I'm not remembering this archetype.
But my main issue (apart from the pretty boring narration) is the novel's takeaway. In this world, women become witches not to satisfy a need for power or independence and not, as we're kind of led to infer throughout the tale, to seek revenge for past abuse. They become witches because they're bad, and other older witches manipulate and kidnap them for Red Boy, the devil-figure. Red Boy tortures them, they learn magic, and after finally escaping Red Boy by luring in and sacrificing another woman, they decide to stay in "the game." So yeah, basically some dude does this to them but also they definitely deserve it. And it's like, cool story, Laird. I just don't care. 🙄
April 10, 2023
Full of wonderment and wandering.
Almost as much a parable as a fairytale; two forms of storytelling oddly similar in their capacity for issuing righteous judgment and violence. In the House in the Dark of the Woods is also a tale that operates on dream logic, building and rebuilding itself to make sense of the strangeness of its world.
While it was done purposefully, the archetypal characters weren't any I connected with. Each had an assigned role and performed it as required. It was serviceable, but I was more compelled by each character's circumstances rather than themselves. I can appreciate why this writing decision was made, but, for a horror novel, I feel scares are much more effective when there is some pathos involved. I was certainly uneasy reading of these characters, but less so in fear for them.
Even though I didn't find this especially creepy, I still enjoyed exploring this strange little nightmare. In the House in the Dark of the Woods is the literary equivalent of playing The Sims 4: Outdoor Retreat, which is really all I could ever ask for.
Almost as much a parable as a fairytale; two forms of storytelling oddly similar in their capacity for issuing righteous judgment and violence. In the House in the Dark of the Woods is also a tale that operates on dream logic, building and rebuilding itself to make sense of the strangeness of its world.
While it was done purposefully, the archetypal characters weren't any I connected with. Each had an assigned role and performed it as required. It was serviceable, but I was more compelled by each character's circumstances rather than themselves. I can appreciate why this writing decision was made, but, for a horror novel, I feel scares are much more effective when there is some pathos involved. I was certainly uneasy reading of these characters, but less so in fear for them.
Even though I didn't find this especially creepy, I still enjoyed exploring this strange little nightmare. In the House in the Dark of the Woods is the literary equivalent of playing The Sims 4: Outdoor Retreat, which is really all I could ever ask for.
March 12, 2020
This was so deliciously strange and unexpected and somehow both visceral and dreamlike. It really reminded me of the folktales recorded by Franz Xaver von Schonwerth in the mid 19th century- because they were never modernized and sanitized in the way that the Brothers Grimm tales were, they maintained certain qualities that I think this book captures really well. There is this sense of a world with an entirely alien set of rules outside the realm of any normal human logic. The hapless humans caught up in this web are completely unaware of these rules yet still brutally subject to them, and no mercy is granted for ignorance.
This leads to a deep sense that nothing is as it seems, that every seemingly innocuous detail holds a special weight that deserves consideration and suspicion. Is almost kaleidoscopic- one moment an old woman in the woods is enjoying a nice joint of pork, the next moment the scene tips into the horrorific, relish turning to greedy gorging and back again.
Because the main character (and the reader to some extent) doesn't have the tools to figure out what's going on, the suspicion just becomes this overwhelming sense of dread that grows and grows until the very end, the very moment when it's all too late and the true horrific nature of this world is finally revealed.
I originally rated this a 4-star, but the more I think about it, the more I'm just so thoroughly satisfied with it as a whole. I'm probably not going to be recommending it to a ton of people because it IS strange and dark and very wtf-is-actually-happening, but I just loved it.
This leads to a deep sense that nothing is as it seems, that every seemingly innocuous detail holds a special weight that deserves consideration and suspicion. Is almost kaleidoscopic- one moment an old woman in the woods is enjoying a nice joint of pork, the next moment the scene tips into the horrorific, relish turning to greedy gorging and back again.
Because the main character (and the reader to some extent) doesn't have the tools to figure out what's going on, the suspicion just becomes this overwhelming sense of dread that grows and grows until the very end, the very moment when it's all too late and the true horrific nature of this world is finally revealed.
I originally rated this a 4-star, but the more I think about it, the more I'm just so thoroughly satisfied with it as a whole. I'm probably not going to be recommending it to a ton of people because it IS strange and dark and very wtf-is-actually-happening, but I just loved it.
February 13, 2020
If you like The Blair Witch Project you will like Robert Egger’s The Witch and if you like The Witch you will love In the House in the Dark of the Woods. I found it consuming, disconcerting and bizarre. That olde English folklore atmosphere with its riddles and sing songs got in to my head and tapped into some kind of primitive, ancestral fear. I love witch horror with all my heart. If it’s done well it is extraordinarily frightening. This book set a precedence with the way it conjured up a grotesque and suffocating feeling, like hysterical witches shrieking and dancing round a fire in the woods. Some parts got a bit fantastical but this overall added to the delightful confusion that was this book.
August 7, 2022
Actual rating: 2.5 stars
This is a hard book for me to rate. I didn't mind the prose (other readers seem to hate it) and the story consistently kept my full attention. However, by the end of this book I was feeling a bit lost. There is clearly supposed to be some meaning tucked into this little book, but I have no idea what the author was hoping to convey to the reader. There were too many ideas and not enough pages to make any of them clear. I didn't have a bad time reading this book, but it wasn't what I was hoping for.
This is a hard book for me to rate. I didn't mind the prose (other readers seem to hate it) and the story consistently kept my full attention. However, by the end of this book I was feeling a bit lost. There is clearly supposed to be some meaning tucked into this little book, but I have no idea what the author was hoping to convey to the reader. There were too many ideas and not enough pages to make any of them clear. I didn't have a bad time reading this book, but it wasn't what I was hoping for.
August 20, 2018
Felt a bit disorganized and rambling which made it hard to follow. The idea behind the story was promising, but the execution was a bit lackluster.
Thank you to Little Brown for the free copy and a chance to review!
Thank you to Little Brown for the free copy and a chance to review!
October 25, 2019
One of my favorites of 2018 so far. The leisurely fairy-tale narrative keeps slipping. Questions are posed and shrugged off. Like in this delicious exchange:
I don't come across many novels that stubbornly resist explanations and resolutions, yet seem to hold my interest effortlessly. The marvelously odd and unstable ending is very satisfying.
(Needless to say, if you refuse to dot your i's, you end up with a lot of one- and two-star goodreads ratings.)
"Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods... Now why did she go?"
"Why did she go?"
"Why did she go and what did she do?"
"Went down to the stream and took off her shoe."
"And before that?"
"Set off from her house in a bonnet blue."
"Now tell me, what did she rue?"
...
"What did she rue?"
I don't come across many novels that stubbornly resist explanations and resolutions, yet seem to hold my interest effortlessly. The marvelously odd and unstable ending is very satisfying.
(Needless to say, if you refuse to dot your i's, you end up with a lot of one- and two-star goodreads ratings.)
October 26, 2018
It was slight, and as such it was not a bad reading experience. It took me a while to cotton on to where it was going. But even when I did, I didn't fully get the point. It's eerie and atmospheric, but ultimately too vague to be satisfying.
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