Nightwoods
By Charles Frazier
(Random House, Hardcover, 9781400067091, September 2011, 272pp.)

The Short of It:

The looming darkness of this story is unrelenting and wickedly constructed.

The Rest of It:

Set  among the Appalachians during the 1960’s, Luce is a women who has literally turned her back on society. Working as a caretaker for an abandoned lodge, Luce takes pleasure in being alone. Her sister is dead and gone, murdered by a brutal man who took the term “got away with murder” to a whole new level. Luce’s life is suddenly complicated by the children that her sister left behind. Delivered to her by a social worker, she is forced to care for them and this proves much more difficult than it sounds. These children are broken, wild creatures that can’t be left alone with chickens or any other living thing. As she works to break down the barriers of communication, she finds that these children, the only remnant that remains of her sister, mean more to her than she is willing to admit and when her sister’s killer comes around for them, her strength is put to the test.

What a lovely little book. Dark, gritty but lovely in the way that only dark, haunting woods can be. I didn’t care for Frazier’s other book, Cold Mountain. In fact, I had a real aversion to it and forced myself to read it because I felt I had to. You know how it is, everyone was talking about and I certainly didn’t want to be left out of the discussion so I forced it down like castor oil. This was not the case with Nightwoods.

In Nightwoods, I was fascinated with these kids. Their wildness and the fact that they witnessed their mother’s death. What a horrible thing for them to have gone through. I was also taken with Bud, the man who killed their mother. He is the epitome of evil but dressed up all nice and pretty with equal doses of charm and swagger. When he decides to go after the kids, because he believes they know where some money is hidden, you know as a reader that he means what he says. His pursuit of them is unsettling as is their perception of what danger is.

Reading this was like being in the woods with all of its deep, dark secrets. It’s a very atmospheric novel and although I would have liked to know a bit more about Luce and her background, I felt as if I knew enough for this story to work for me. As dark as the subject matter is, it’s a good book to read if you want to escape from the day-to-day. It’s suspenseful, but not overly so. If you enjoy luscious, gorgeous prose… you will enjoy it.

Source: Borrowed
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