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The Haddesley family has an ancient tradition: when the patriarch dies, the oldest son summons a wife from the bog. Now living in Appalachia, the current patriarch is dying and a new bog wife must be summoned soon, but their covenant with the bog may be going wrong: one daughter fled years ago to live in the modern world, the last bog wife vanished under mysterious circumstances, the bog is drying up, and something very bad has happened to the oldest son...
Isn't that an amazing premise? The actual book absolutely lives up to it, but not in the way that I expected.
It was marketed as horror, and was the inaugural book of the Paper & Clay horror book club. But my very first question to the club was "Do you think this book is horror?"
The club's consensus was no, or not exactly; it definitely has strong folk horror elements, but overall we found it hard to categorize by genre. I am currently cross-shelving it in literary fiction. We all loved it though, and it was a great book to discuss in a book club; very thought-provoking.
One of the aspects I enjoyed was how unpredictable it was. The plot both did and didn't go in directions I expected, partly because the pacing was also unpredictable: events didn't happen at the pace or in the order I expected from the premise. If the book sounds interesting to you, I recommend not spoiling yourself.
The family is a basically a small family cult, living in depressing squalor under the rule of the patriarch. It's basically anti-cottagecore, where being close to nature in modern America may mean deluding yourself that you're living an ancient tradition of natural life where you're not even close to being self-sustaining, but also missing all the advantages of modern life like medical treatment and hot water. I found all this incredibly relatable and validating, as I grew up in similar circumstances though with the reason of religion rather than an ancient covenant with the bog.
The family has been psychologically twisted by their circumstances, so they're all pretty weird and also don't get along. I didn't like them for large stretches, but I did care a lot about them all by the end, and was very invested in their fates. (Except the patriarch. He can go fuck himself.)
It's beautifully written, incredibly atmospheric, and very well-characterized. The atmosphere is very oppressive and claustrophobic, but if you're up for the journey, it will take you somewhere very worthwhile. The book club discussion of the ending was completely split on its emotional implications (not on the actual events, those are clear): we were equally divided between thinking it was mostly hopeful/uplifing with bittersweet elements, mostly sad with some hopeful elements, and perfectly bittersweet.
SPOILERS!
By the halfway mark, when the bog wife hadn't appeared and we start learning more about the lies the family is built on, I started wondering if there ever had been a bog wife or if that was a lie too. I was very pleased to learn that there absolutely is a bog wife!
The oldest son, who can't summon the bog wife, has a Fisher King like wound to his testicles caused by a tree falling on the house! The bog covenant is very real, but changing; the family's misery is largely caused by the cult dad refusing to adapt and change, and refusing to allow his family - or the bog itself - to adapt and change. The ecology of the bog and the psychological/physical state of the family are reflections of each other. The bog is becoming a forest, and the family can free itself only by changing just as dramatically.
The bog wife who finally shows up - in the last fifth of the book, when I thought she'd appear in the first fifth - is not a wife, but the missing mother, the original bog wife. When she returns to the bog/new forest, two of her children return with her, slowly merging with nature and becoming one with it. Two of her children stay to tend the new forest. And the oldest son, the one who was supposed to become the new patriarch, gets the hell out of there and has the first hot shower of his life in a cheap motel. It's glorious.
And SO RELATABLE. I remember my first hot shower after spending seven years dumping cups of water over my head from a tin cup in a cold stone cell.
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That does sound interesting to me! Adding it to my TBR list.
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