Drowned Country is the final entry in Tesh’s Greenhollow Duology. The first book was told from Tobias’ perspective, and thiI fell asleep reading this.
Drowned Country is the final entry in Tesh’s Greenhollow Duology. The first book was told from Tobias’ perspective, and this one from that of his sometime lover Henry, having assumed Tobias’ previous mantle as wild man of the wood.
It picks up years later with their relationship strained. Tobias is still devotedly in the employ of Henry’s mother, monster hunter Adela Silver, something Henry resents. Through the dynamic between the three, the novella periodically jumps back in time to reveal why Henry and Tobias broke up. In the present, they are hunting a vampire.
And, again, this duology ostensibly about the magic of Greenhollow Wood spends time away from it, and that loss is keenly felt.
It’s instead Henry and Tobias walking cobbled, gaslit streets, uneasy in each other’s company. Musings on the break-up—on the nature of break-ups, while hoping a vampire shows up. This would be fine enough to read of, had the first book not interrupted their budding relationship and had them spend most of it apart, and this book not started with them broken up and bitter, their love shown only in fragments.
The novella makes a flying leap from Victorian vampire hunting back to fairies, requiring Henry to act in a way that should only damage his relationship with Tobias further.
But it’s all a contrivance to get a replacement assistant for Adela Silver, a replacement wild man for Greenhollow.
So Tobias and Henry can have nothing else on their agenda but falling back in love.
It’s literally mundane, and I don’t blame myself for dozing off, hoping my dreams would offer something more magical....more
This gave me a little bit of Labyrinth, a little bit of 1973’s The Wicker Man; things that would make a book my favorite if given in larger doses.
“A lThis gave me a little bit of Labyrinth, a little bit of 1973’s The Wicker Man; things that would make a book my favorite if given in larger doses.
“A little” really sums up Silver in the Wood for me. As I read, I could feel the limitations of the book’s short length.
All scenes in the wood were excellent, and I was impressed by the character work Emily Tesh was able to do with Tobias and Henry during them. I really felt the attraction and mystery and potential in the relationship between this Victorian scholar and this mystical Wild Man of the Wood, with Henry as drawn to the wood’s magics as he is Tobias. If the novella had maintained this focus, it would’ve been 5 stars, easy.
But then this character-driven story gets plot-heavy. The building relationship gets interrupted as Henry is suddenly spirited away. The wood is literally removed. Tobias, wild man of the wood, instead becomes a valet to Henry’s prim and proper mother, a monster hunter, going on adventures that sound intriguing enough, but get glossed over for the book’s brevity. Even described in passing.
All the while, neither Tobias nor Henry’s mother investigated—or even worried over!—what happened to Henry to my satisfaction. It’s not even presented as a mystery to be solved. They just do other things and hope he’ll show back up somehow.
While I liked this novella well enough at the start, its middle and end were disappointing, as were its focus and pacing. But the magic, the promise I felt somewhere in there urges me to still give it 3 stars....more
While he was hospitalized for pneumonia in 2003, Tabitha King started a reno project on her husband Stephen’s home office. Upon his discharge, seeing While he was hospitalized for pneumonia in 2003, Tabitha King started a reno project on her husband Stephen’s home office. Upon his discharge, seeing his workspace bare and his things in boxes, inspiration struck for a story:
The experience of a famous author’s wife during and after his death.
While Lisey’s Story isn’t necessarily Tabby’s Story — King says as much in his author’s note —, she clearly provided much more inspiration beyond boxing his things up. Tabitha King has lived a truly singular life, being married to arguably the world’s most famous writer. Throughout their partnership, her own accomplishments, literary and otherwise, have been eclipsed by his incomparable success.
Even the most famous anecdote about Tabitha is one in service of Stephen, retrieving the discarded pages of what would become Carrie from the trash, urging him to continue the story that would become his his debut and breakthrough.
Like the titular Lisey, Tabitha King has often been defined in the media by her relationship to her husband…including, probably, regrettably, in this very review. As recently as 2019, she and Stephen spoke out against an article on their donation to the New England Historic Genealogical Society that credited them as “Stephen King and his wife”.
“Wife is a relationship or status. It is not an identity,” she wrote.
And identity is what gets explored in Lisey’s Story.
In part.
In its strongest parts. Parts that hint that the story goes beyond inspiration, but subtle revelations of this famous couple’s private life.
Lisey met Scott Landon in college (just as Tabitha and Stephen met). Scott found unprecedented success as a writer, his books winning multiple awards, and providing the couple a very comfortable life (sound familiar?). Both before and after Scott’s death, Lisey must navigate how the disparity of her situation with Scott impacts her relationship with her two sisters, resentful Darla and troubled Amanda, who live in very different circumstances.
A quick Google search tells me Tabitha King has three sisters instead of two, but King admits in his author’s note that, while the fictional Debusher sisters aren’t 1:1 parallels of Tabby and hers, he was inspired all the same by observing their sororal dynamic through the years.
Another clue hinting at Lisey’s Story’s special importance to the King family was his listing it among his top five favorites of his own work in a 2021 Colbert interview promoting Billy Summers. There, he revealed he had held onto the story rights for years before finally selling it to Apple TV for adaptation.
All this in mind, I wish my regard for Lisey’s Story was so high.
Really, the best way I can describe this book is “Stephen King does Hannah and her Sisters”.
Like Hannah in the 1986 movie, the well-established Lisey must be a source of financial support and emotional labor for her sisters. Simultaneously, she receives minimal help when she needs it after Scott’s death, as if wealth and success are cocoon enough against life’s harsher realities. And, again like Hannah, resentment for her advantages precludes others from seeing her needs.
All of this is great. Being one of three sisters myself, I adore sister stories — it’s why my knowledge of this one movie is so thorough, despite my disdain for its director.
But here’s where Lisey’s Story loses my favor:
In Hannah and her Sisters, there’s a cheating subplot linking several of the characters. In Lisey’s Story, the through line is ~*~magical mental illness~*~, a trope I find inelegant.
Scott had it. His brother had it. His father had it, as had untold generations of Landon men before them. It took several of their lives, either by suicide or murder.
But it also gave them access to a fantastical other world, referred to by Scott as Boo’ya Moon, a beautiful, but dangerous place populated by…clinically depressed people? Like Lisey’s sister Amanda, comatose in real life after a suicide attempt? And “curing” Amanda is a simple as traveling into Boo’ya Moon to bring her back?
Anyone should be allowed to make whatever metaphor for mental illness they want; in that same vein, the reader can decide how they feel about that depiction. For me, it’s reductive (miracle cures) and problematic (Scott incorporates Boo’ya Moon into several of his bestselling books; that old trope of mental illness as a fount for creativity).
But I don’t feel like this book was meant for me or my critique. It was for the King family, for the Spruce family.
For Tabby, an incredible human in her own right ...more
I loved this. It's taken me so long to review this book because I'm not sure how well I can articulate how much I loved it.
Here's my best attempt:
It'sI loved this. It's taken me so long to review this book because I'm not sure how well I can articulate how much I loved it.
Here's my best attempt:
It's become rather trendy recently to "reclaim" the Persephone myth from Greek mythology: The story of Persephone's abduction by her uncle Hades, forced to become his wife in the Underworld. All the other Gods just let it happen, but finally agreed to allow her to leave when her mother, the Harvest Goddess Demeter, caused considerable famine on Earth through her grief. Before she could leave, however, Hades tricked her with an ensorcelled pomegranate seed, requiring her to spend a season each year with him in the Underworld.
Each year, the world withers and grows cold for Demeter's grief at being separated from her daughter. And that's how we got Winter, the worst season.
But recent reimaginings of the myth are much softer. They depict Persephone and Hades sweetly as a couple slotting perfectly into the Grumpy/Sunshine trope. They depict Persephone as being oppressed by an overbearing mother in Demeter, eager for an escape. They depict Hades as awakening the darkness inside Persephone, allowing for her agency to bloom in the Underworld.
Among other things.
None of these have ever sat right with me. These reclamations are wolves in sheep's clothing, pretending to be about female agency and empowerment while maintaining the framework that still sees a woman kidnapped and forced into the life of a man.
I don't think these stories are about Persephone at all. I really just think they're a way of romanticizing Hades, the OG dark, broody, taciturn hawt boi. And the onus is on Persephone in these stories to either bring light into his life through her love, or embrace the darkness within her to conform to his ~*aesthetic*~ and ~*lifestyle*~.
And I think this is a real-life trap a lot of people, but especially women, fall into. Having to change so much and do so much emotional labor for a partner who won't do the same for you.
It happened to me just once, but once was enough.
I was 18 and spent many miserable hours watching a guy attempt metal music on his guitar, sitting underneath that Pulp Fiction poster. You know the one. He talked mad shit about his ex-girlfriends, but didn't want me to even allude to any past relationships. He ate meat, smoked weed, and drank; I did not (still don't). And when he couldn't keep hard (ahem...all the meat and weed ...more
I began The Talisman knowing nothing of what it was about, but a friend's mom considers it her favorite Stephen King book (sorry Peter Straub lol). ~1I began The Talisman knowing nothing of what it was about, but a friend's mom considers it her favorite Stephen King book (sorry Peter Straub lol). ~100 pages in, I started to worry. It was giving me shades of King's The Eyes of the Dragon and Fairytale, both books I was not enchanted by.
Something about King's fantasy worlds doesn't click with me. I think so much of his strength as a writer comes from his cutting insight into human nature, largely informed by aspects of our culture. It's what makes his bullies, his abusers, and his monsters so intimidating. It is especially reflective of American attitudes & norms. When he creates a fantasy world whole-cloth, this commentary goes missing from his storytelling. Plus, his worldbuilding is sparse. What's left are shallow characters - no more than archetypes, really - navigating a world with just as little depth.
On the other hand, he worked a special magic when writing The Stand, my all-time favorite book. There, he transformed the USA into a high fantasy landscape, both similar and strange to the world we know, and imbuing it with its own unique magic system around real-world religion. Not only do I consider The Stand high fantasy, but it's my favorite work of high fantasy ever written. And King didn't even have to create a whole new world for it.
All this in mind, despite my initial misgivings, I didn't end up hating The Talisman. It wasn't amazing, but I liked it.
I realized, to enjoy The Talisman, I had to view it episodically - like Tolkien's The Hobbit being meant to be read in episodes each night to his children. Not everything that happens to Jack on his journey is essential to the story - he makes and loses friends, takes up odd jobs, gets into trouble, hopscotches between worlds - some parts are more interesting than others, certainly, just like in Bilbo's adventures.
What I liked most was how this story didn't entirely take place in the Territories - again, because King's fantasy worldbuilding is ehhhh. I loved how Jack could flip back and forth from it to the real world. It was a device to help him out of bad situations but had set limitations for how often he could do it. I was also really intrigued to see where in America he'd end up when he came back, as every location (and person) in our world had a Territories equivalent.
Weak points, aside from the Territories' worldbuilding, would be Jack - he acted with the maturity and sense of humor of a 50-year-old man rather than a 12-year-old kid. His friend Richard was introduced too late into the story for a character so important to the plot. Morgan Sloat was just a blanketly evil villain; he would've been more complex if he had real love and concern for his son.
And this book mentions "Twinners" a million times. Every single time it did, I thought of these queens: [image]...more
Something of a creation mythology that devolves into deconstruction, where the mysteries of the world are not as important as the mystery of one's selSomething of a creation mythology that devolves into deconstruction, where the mysteries of the world are not as important as the mystery of one's self. Both the language and structure are matched in their consideration and beauty, building together an incredible adventure....more
Buzzword Reading Challenge, satisfies August 2022 prompt: A book with an item/object in the title, #2
Better than the first. A Spindle Splintered was pBuzzword Reading Challenge, satisfies August 2022 prompt: A book with an item/object in the title, #2
Better than the first. A Spindle Splintered was preoccupied with introducing its portal fantasy mechanic, with its lead providing grating meta-commentary on the situation. It was more a deconstruction of fairytales rather than a story in its own right.
While I still didn't enjoy the writing style of A Mirror Mended, it felt like a new fairytale written with what was learned from the last, and it was a much better novella for it....more
Buzzword Reading Challenge, satisfies August 2022 prompt: A book with an item/object in the title, #1
Really sweet! Just a little too quippy and insubsBuzzword Reading Challenge, satisfies August 2022 prompt: A book with an item/object in the title, #1
Really sweet! Just a little too quippy and insubstantial for my taste. Plus, I'm a devotee of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, so I can tolerate no slander....more
I liked this story well enough; much of the inspiration comes from beloved fairytales, so the fantasy world discovered is familiar and a little spookyI liked this story well enough; much of the inspiration comes from beloved fairytales, so the fantasy world discovered is familiar and a little spooky. There's comfort to be found in this, but it's not overly unique. Stephen King was able to transform the USA into a more varied and compelling fantasy landscape in The Stand, a book that remains both my all-time favorite and favorite work of high fantasy.
My main hangup with Fairy Tale is how it's written. Page 1, narrator Charlie declares himself a storytelling newby. What follows is 600 pages of Charlie describing things that "LOOKED LIKE [blank]" or "REMINDED ME OF [blank]" or "MADE ME THINK OF [blank]". Mostly, things looked like or reminded him/made him think of something he saw on TCM. Some examples:
- Page 30: "The light there was provided by an overhead frosted glass fixture that looked like part of the set dressing in one of those old TCM movies."
- Page 91: "Both of them looked like the kind of suits George Raft and Edward G. Robinson wore in movies like 'Each Dawn I Die'."
- Page 140: "It looked like something out of ‘Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'."
- Page 363: "The person he reminded me of was Donald Sutherland."
- Page 372: "What I was seeing reminded me of the war boats in one of my favorite TCM movies, 'Ben-Hur'."
- Page 451: "The first cart contained a huge pot that made me think of the wicked witch's kitchen in 'Hansel and Gretel'."
- Page 567: "Stitches that made me think of a Frankenstein movie I'd watched on TCM."
Not only does this become repetitive, but it's lazy. It relies on the reader's preexisting knowledge of these properties as description shorthand. You come up with the imagery so the text doesn't have to. For a writer as talented as King, even if he's roleplaying as his MC, it's disappointing.
This isn't a bad book, and I know it won't be the last I pick up from King. I also know I likely won't revisit this one, except perhaps to look at Gabriel Rodriguez's amazing illustrations. Those were beautiful....more
Very enchanting. I'm smitten with the real world being more fantastical than the actual fantasy world uncovered.
While I appreciate that The Hollow PlaVery enchanting. I'm smitten with the real world being more fantastical than the actual fantasy world uncovered.
While I appreciate that The Hollow Places wanted to depict a rational, realistic reaction to the idea of portal fantasies, I do feel the story could get stuck at times. I loved both the creepy Willow World and the whimsy of Hog Chapel; I just got a bit bored when the book fell in between, mostly when Kara got too much in her head.
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