Customer Reviews

In a Dark Wood: A Novel

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

IN A DARK WOOD is unlike any other book I've read - and I loved it! Topics include England, America, divorce, fairy tales, and skeletons in the family closet.

A man nearing 40 is getting a divorce from his wife and has to re-evaluate his life. He discovers a dark fairy tale book written by his mother, who killed herself when he was 6, and he has very little recollection of her. Tracking down his mother's friends and reading the stories help him learn about his past, his family and himself.

The writing style is very smart. The dark fairy stories within the book are killer and they neatly parallel what happened in the mother's past as well as the protagonist's present. The story starts off right in the middle of his moving out of his house, and then continues on a steady pace, building and spiraling until the end.

This book was right up my alley. I look forward to reading more works by Amanda Craig.

Although the words "a real page-turner...couldn't put it down" are as over-used in reviews as an ATM in Vegas, no other words more accurately describe this book. From page one, Craig carries the reader through a delightful roller-coaster ride of emotions. Combining our hero's search for the truth (about his deceased mother) with the fairy tales (his Mother wrote) he can not escape, IN A DARK WOOD makes for an intriguing novel, sure to be on every critics "ten best" list come December. Please, more from Amanda Craig (she has a number of novels available in England, but not America)- and soon!

Amanda Craig's book "In A Dark Wood" is the first of hers I've read. There must have been at least five times in the reading of the story that I put the book down in disgust wondering how anyone as obnoxiously self-centered as Benedick Hunter could be the main character. Craig certainly was not shooting for a "Conspiracy of Dunces" effect. It wasn't until I got to the end, realized what the unifying issue was to the character, that the heartstrings open and you feel great for having read this book. Having a protagonist with mental illness is always an uphill battle because sane readers need a handle to hold onto. While I agree that this was a great book, it was somewhat difficult to live with this character for the duration of the read. For example, near the end of the story when Benedick is in South Carolina, he hangs up on his ex-wife and says that he's not bringing their son back; how does one have sympathy for a kidnapper? I'm glad I came back and finished the book. The fairy tales within the book are marvelous. It would have been fun to have the illustrations referred to also included. The unravelling of the family secrets propels the novel and gives it a nice sense of pacing. While I think I might have enjoyed this book more if I could have read it backwards, I do think it's one worth the read.

This is a mesmeric, haunting novel, and for those of you who are fooled into thinking this is primarily about mental illness...Think and READ again. You have fallen into a sort of trap set by this extremely subtle, almost wily, author. Yes, mental illness is one thematic level on which one can read this, in so many ways, disturbing and original book.-"And when the ink begins to write/ It makes the paper black and white."-The poem from Benedick's visionary mother pops up at beginning and end of the narrative. Why?

Read aright, the story of Benedick's quest interlarded with his mother's dark tales WILL keep you up at night. To come to the conclusion that all she and Benedick need or needed is/was some psychotropic drug like Lithium is to say the same of, say, Shelley or Van Gogh. If you think the ending, at first glance, is simplistic, you're right. But if you think that it undermines the the otherwise terror and fairy tale ridden narrative, then you're reading it on the level which most adults read fairy tales: That is, you're not reading it.

For the ending is the most terrifying part of the book: a fairy tale full of fairy tales that tell us more about ourselves than we like to think. Why is the ending so almost hostilely, one might say, simplistic? Again, ask yourself, what's the line with which fairy tales, including the dark fairy tales of Benedick's mother, end? Then reread the book, as I did...if you dare!

This is an extraordinary novel--a gripping, mesmerising read that has the feel of a Grimm fairytale, rooted very firmly in the strangeness of human nature. Benedick Hunter first enters the 'dark wood' without warning, after a long calvary as a failure, as husband, father, actor..He is sure he can get out of it by embarking on strange travels with his young son, Cosmo, in the US. looking for lost family..He and Cosmo come to the haunted South..and it's then the wood gets darker still, the net tightens around him, the wicked witch is coming..
With all the pace of a thriller, and a great tenderness under the black comedy and Gothic foreboding, this gripping, unusual and lucid novel is very hard to put down. In fact, I couldn't! Highly recommended.

Anybody who still thinks fairy tales are mere bedtime stories for kids has to check out Amanda Craig's new In a Dark Wood, which uses their mythic, roadmap qualities to illuminate a life and in the process create a fascinating, intelligent, page-turner of a novel. Grounded in a fictional fairy tale created by the protagonist's author-illustrator mother, In a Dark Wood takes off, in a smartly multi-layered way, into explorations of family history, failure, loss, survival and breakdown. Amazingly Craig (whose work is finally crossing the ocean from England to North America, thank heavens,) manages this with a miraculous dark wit - a kind of authorial magic flashing through her dark wood.

Benedick Hunter is having what at first appears to be a middle-aged crisis. He's an actor who hasn't had any steady work recently. His wife is divorcing him and he bickers constantly with his pompous father. He finds little joy from taking care of his imaginative, but demanding young children. Benedick lives off from the small amount of royalties from his mother's children's books. After rediscovering one of these collection of fairy tales he begins reading the stories for deeper personal meanings. He's compelled to follow a trail of his mother's old friends who are scattered over Britain and America like a trail of breadcrumbs. The mysteries contained in her subversive fables lead him to his mother's childhood home and the truth about his family that has been hidden from him. Gradually he learns that his alienation from society and erratic behaviour has its roots in a mental illness. But he has to descend into the darkest psychological depths in order to learn how to live with this disorder.

In this beautiful and moving novel, Craig manages to write very convincingly about a man's perspective of the world. Benedick's personal aspirations are clouded by despair in a way that prevents him from also appreciating all the loving people he has in his life. Unfortunately, he has also inherited a lot of pain and bitterness from his mother's life, many of the facts of which have been hidden from him. We are also given many funny details about the cultural differences between America and England. What the author also does so extraordinarily well is show a blend of light and dark in this central character's psychology. He does a number of detestable things. Yet we are given insight into them and understand they are acts of desperation brought about through a mental illness he can`t control. Craig pays tribute to the important and complex work of Angela Carter who was dubbed the Fairy Godmother of British fiction. She does this by insisting that fairy tales have a much deeper meaning than what appears on the surface. The raucous emotions and terrible violence they depict just may be a greater reflection of reality than we care to admit. The psychological demons which hound many people are indeed more terrifying than the creatures who lurk in the dark woods of fairy tales. By blending the story of Benedick's travels with a number of creative fairy tales, Craig gives us a lot of insight into this while producing an enthralling story.

Having suffered from clinical depression and known others with manic depression, I was hooked by the idea of a novel about it - and amazed to find it not only deeply sensitive to the condition but a great piece of fiction too. What nobody so far has mentioned is that it's very FUNNY. Craig has segued the idea of someone going on an Oedipal quest to discover the truth about himself with the confusion many men feel about their place in a world increasingly dominated by women. I laughed so much at Benedick's attempts to cope with his kids, his failing career as an actor, even his self-pity before being plunged into his heart of darkness. There are so many smart observations, but this is a deep book about our need for stories, and about finding sanity and hope in the midst of despair.

Dark and mesmerizing summarizes this novel by Amanda Craig. Spiraling through mental illness and self-discovery, the main character is very believable and intense. This novel is story-telling at its best.

Reading a fairy tale within the pages of a novel just doesn't work for me. Also, the main character was not likeable.I didn't care about anyone in this book and although the author seemed to be using the fairy tale written by the main character's mother as a means to pull the reader in, for me, the method failed and the "mystery" was not very intriguing.