In a Dark Wood

by Amanda Craig

Book Overview

Benedick Hunter is a man who has lost everything. A failed actor and divorced father, his life takes on a direction when he finds a book of his mother's in which real people and their stories are... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385502621
• ISBN13: 9780385502627
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Nan A. Talese
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

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!

A gripping, almost mesmerising read

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.

One of the Year's Ten Best

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!

Darkness Prevails

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.

A fairy tale of a novel, strictly for grown-ups

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.