The Darkest Part of the Woods

Like Heather Price, the main character in this novel, I started out in denial of the power of The Darkest Part of the Woods. The pacing was slow, the literary conceits seemed obvious, the characters acted tranquilized. But eventually, I became obsessed with the woods and I continued to think about (be haunted by?) this novel long after I finished reading it. The reviewer who complained about Campbell's over-use of forest imagery missed the point. The woods are a camouflage; it's the darkness that holds the power. This is a difficult book, and I understand why the reviews are so polarized. But I thought it great and seriously disturbing.

"The Darkest Part of the Woods" is less of a return to form for British horror Grandmaster Ramsey Campbell and more of a homecoming jaunt to his old, familiar haunts: the dark thickets and menacing woodland traipses of Southwestern England, where the Elder Gods slumber beneath rotten standing stones, and hungry, withered things wait and watch for the innocent and unwary. For those with the patience to penetrate its thickly forested perimeter and discover its mysteries, "The Darkest Part of the Woods" ultimately proves a darksome treasurehouse, and Campbell ratchets the atmosphere up from slight unease to soul-stifling terror. This is a tasty spiced October brew of ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties, but in Campbell's England there are no Saints left to preserve us. "Darkest Part" starts with a peculiar kind of homecoming for the Price family. The mad patriarch Lennox Price, presiding over a circle of his fellow inmates in a Brichester madhouse, issues a mysterious summons to his estranged wife Margo, a London artist starving for inspiration; stoic daughter Heather, now a university librarian struggling with her listless teenage son, Sam; and Sam himself, still wrestling with what he thought he saw as he camped in a tree shelter one night, something so vast and shadowy that he lurched off the platform in terror and snapped his leg. Lennox Price was formerly a brilliant toxicologist who came to the Goodmanswood in the Severn Valley to study a peculiar fungus in the depths of the forest. The most perilous Science has a habit of devouring the scientist, and Lennox promptly fell victim to the mind-warping hallucinogenic properties of the fungus he discovered, categorized, immortalized in print, and named; now he spends most of his days tittering and gazing across the lowering woodland outside the window of his sanatarium. Price's "invitation" is rather sneaky: the family converges on the insane asylum---known as the Arbour---where he is imprisoned, after Price's doctor telephones Margo with the warning that Lennox and his band of followers have escaped into the woods that surround the madhouse. Lennox is a uniter, not a divider: his nocturnal flight into the woods even manages to call up the Price family's other daughter, the more whimsicial Sophie, from her mysterious travels in America. She arrives unannounced in Brichester days later, and bearing not a few secrets herself. When I was in graduate school in upstate New York I lived in a cottage that backed up directly onto a deep, dark woodland. I remember resting my eyes for a few minutes from my studies, and gazing out through my study windows at the lowering trees; practically every day I would go for long walks in the wood, meandering walks for the most part, but walks that would unfailingly lead me to a sort of central circle of ancient, gnarled giants, which held court around a huge, venerable maple. That tree had presence, power, authority: I nicknamed it "Grandfather Tree

This book felt, smelled, and oozed autumn. The best "something wrong with the woods" story ever. At one point Mr. Campbell tips his hat to the Blair Witch Project with a mention of Burkitsville, which is fitting. Like The BWP this book gives you hints and clues, and enough "what the hell was that's" to hint at something nameless and ominous, but always lets the reader complete the picture. Another reason it works as with all his other books, you give a damn about the people that fill the pages. I genuinely felt bad for our artist/mother when her work fails to inspire, or the brother who fears he has been spending a little too much "quality" time with his aunt. Mr. Campbell has a writing style that has always seemed authentic and somehow slightly antiquated in a good way (or maybe just very British) .. It never feels like your reading Stephen King...you can tell his influences are much older.. Lovecraft, Blackwood, and Machen. Darkest Part of the Woods has a hint of decadence as well..Huysmans come to mind. Highly recommended for those who enjoy their horrors lush and literate.

I wouldn't call this a return to form for Campbell, who excels at many forms, and has done some of his finest work in thrillers such as THE ONE SAFE PLACE. But it is a return to the supernatural form where he first took root, and it feels like a major contribution to that field. There are images here which count as innovation while remaining firmly in the tradition of M.R. James, Blackwood and Lovecraft. Just looking at the chapter titles gives a frisson like the ones I used to get looking at titles in an Arkham House catalog. And while it builds with Campbell's signature sense of dread imbued in every phrase, the finale is fantastically literal. One of his very best, and that is saying a lot.

American professor Dr. Lennox Price moves his family to Goodmanswood, England to study the dark legends surrounding the area especially the delusions of the nearby residents. However, instead of debunking the myths, Lennox is soon sucked into his work as a converted true believer. Thus he is committed, but quickly develops a cult following among the asylum's crazier folks.His daughter archivist Heather follows up on her father's enigmatic beliefs about Goodmanswood that links them to the alchemist Nathaniel Selcouth, who resided there. Heather digs into the works of Nathaniel, who apparently was trying to fashion a messenger who would serve as his servant in seeking the outer limits of the spiritual and physical universe. Meanwhile, children insist a grotesque "sticky man" resides in the woods. Heather wonders if he exists and if he does is he the evil behind all the malevolence destroying the Price family?THE DARKEST PART OF THE WOODS is a classic horror tale that works because of the set up by Ramsey Campbell is at its best here. The Price family are intelligent nice people who are being overwhelmed by a sinister darkness that grows ever menacing with each new page. The story line is taut as readers will feel the creepiness of the woods that transforms into something immoral and dangerous. Mr. Campbell is at his best with this superb horror thriller.Harriet Klausner