Title: In the House in the Dark of the Woods

Author: Laird Hunt

Series: none

Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company

Publication Date: October 16th, 2018

Genres: Horror, Adult

In this ingenious horror story set in colonial New England, a woman goes missing. Or not missing–perhaps she has fled, abandoned her family. Or perhaps she’s been kidnapped, and set loose to wander in the dense woods of the north. Alone and possibly lost, she meets another woman in the forest. Then everything changes. On a journey that will take her through a wolf-haunted wood, down a deep well, and onto a living ship made of human bones, our heroine is forced to confront her past and may find that the evil she flees has been inside her all along. Eerie and disturbing, In the House in the Dark of the Woods is a novel of psychological horror and suspense told in Laird Hunt’s acclaimed lyrical prose style. It is the story of a bewitching, a betrayal, a master huntress and her quarry. It is a story of anger, of repression, of revenge and redemption. It is a story of a haunting, one that forms the bedrock of American mythology, told in a vivid voice you will never forget.

DNF at 45%.

This has to be one of the most bizarre books that I’ve ever read. The narrative bordered on downright nonsensical, I couldn’t recount any distinct plot points if my life depended upon it, and the characters were also head-scratching enigmas. All in all, I have no idea what in the world transpired in the 100 pages that I read.

The writing style further added to the overwhelming confusion that was this book. It seemed like the author was attempting to create a horror-meets-literary-fiction mashup, and it fell miserably flat. Perhaps there was even a bit of historical fiction mixed in? I found myself rereading the same paragraph three or four times and still not comprehending what was taking place in the narrative. I shouldn’t have to work that hard to merely understand a horror book, and it made reading this feel like a chore with minimal to no payoff.

I don’t even know that I would classify this one in the horror genre. It felt more like a meandering, delusional, and frustratingly circuitous fairytale than a chilling narrative that made me scared to turn off the lights. I never felt truly scared while reading this, which usually doesn’t bode well when it comes to a “horror” book. I have a feeling I would have remained disappointed about the lack of horrifying elements had I continued further in the book.

I don’t think it’s an unreasonable expectation that a published book contains a plot that can readily be followed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case in this book, and it was one of the prevailing factors that caused me to put this one down. I simply didn’t care while reading this one. This was my first attempt at reading a Laird Hunt book, and I think I’ll be staying away from his works in the future.