(no subject)

[skygiants]

I tend to really enjoy books that make clever use of epistolary or other documentary conceits; Elizabeth Hand's Wylding Hall in fact specifically takes the form of a series of oral history transcripts, so pun intended, I guess.

It's a quick, eerie little gasp of a book, in which the surviving members of former folk-rock band Windhollow Faire are interviewed about the sinister events that took place during their summer recording session at a weird manor house thirty years ago. The interview format allows character and distinct, variable, untrustworthy perceptions to come through really well for the most part (although there were two band members I could not keep straight, one of them was earnestly into folklore and one of them was kind of a bro but I still kept hitting the middle of their sections and having to check back for their names to figure out which of them was talking) and the actual plot hit, for me, a really good balance with the level of detail provided -- for the most part it's all very low-key unsettling and ambiguous and plausibly deniable, and then every once in a while someone's like "oh yeah I never told anyone about this at the time because we were all stoned but HERE'S SOMETHING COMPLETELY HORRIFYING."

SHE HAD TWO ROWS OF TEETH??? AND THEY STILL PUT HER PHOTO ON THE ALBUM COVER?

I also appreciated this book as an interesting contrast to the kind of folk-rock fantasy one often got in the eighties and nineties. The echoes are for sure there, but Wylding Hall feels like someone took the premise of "what if FAIRIES! met a FOLK ROCK BAND!" and ruthlessly stripped all the romanticism out of it and just kind of let a chilly wind blow through the empty spaces that were left.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

"what if FAIRIES! met a FOLK ROCK BAND!"

So, not War for the Oaks, then? /gdr

[skygiants]

no, nor neither that Mercedes Lackey one about Ren Faires :P

One of the key differences for me, aside from the character of the supernatural encounters, is that this is a retrospective -- the band members are all 30 years older, have had varying levels of success or lack thereof in their divergent careers and personal lives, and are looking back at a time that passed with a sense of uneasy nostalgia. They all feel quite believable.

[landingtree]

The echoes are for sure there, but Wylding Hall feels like someone took the premise of "what if FAIRIES! met a FOLK ROCK BAND!" and ruthlessly stripped all the romanticism out of it and just kind of let a chilly wind blow through the empty spaces that were left.

Ooh! is what I say to that.

[skygiants]

I'm extremely braced for stories about bands with names like 'Windhollow Faire' to fall into a very specific tone and genre, and it was so interesting to me how much this wasn't that.

[asakiyume]

SAME. What an excellent line and chilly and enticing description.

[slashmarks]

This sounds really cool, I have put it on hold at the library.

[skygiants]

It was a book club selection from someone else in my group, and we all ended up enjoying it quite a lot (which often does not happen.)

[musesfool]

Oh that sounds cool.

[skygiants]

Quick read, too! I gulped it down in a day.

[asakiyume]

Elizabeth Hand was giving out promo snippets for this some years ago at Readercon. It looked interesting, but your review makes it seem *more* so.

[skygiants]

This is the first of Elizabeth Hand's books I've read and it definitely has made me interested in experiencing her other stuff!

[kore]

like someone took the premise of "what if FAIRIES! met a FOLK ROCK BAND!" and ruthlessly stripped all the romanticism out of it and just kind of let a chilly wind blow through the empty spaces that were left.

That is totally what it was like. I remember slightly side-eyeing how they talked about the character based on Sandy Dennis, but I would have to look it up.

[skygiants]

I didn't know any of the characters were based on anybody! (I also admittedly don't know very much about the seventies folk-rock scene except for the fact that my mom was very into Steeleye Span.) Was that Lesley?

[sperrywink]

Interesting. I'm not much of an epistolary person, but this sounds interesting. And I agree, your last line of the review is pure magic and definitely deepened my interest!

[skygiants]

Thank you! :D I'm not even sure epistolary is the right term here, as it's not letters per se -- if it were audiovisual, I'd say 'found footage' but it can't be that when there's no actual footage to be had ...

[lacewood]

I read this! I agree with all your comments! Somehow... I'd forgotten about the "two rows of teeth"....

[skygiants]

HOW COULD YOU FORGET THE TWO ROWS OF TEETH

i was just reading along like 'okay, she's haunting, she's pale, she - SHE WHAT'

[lacewood]

My forgetting about the teeth is an accurate reflection of... the characters also forgetting about the teeth!!! (???)

(Presumably I lost this detail under the ongoing wave of VERY BAD NO GOOD MUCH OMINOUS signs pasted all over the place. More reason for a reread one day!)

[rachelmanija]

Thank you, I never heard of this before and have now bought it.

[skygiants]

I'll look forward to hearing what you think of it! :D

[lirazel]

Yeah, I enjoyed this one quite a lot (and think it would make a good film. Especially if they made it in documentary style). It didn't have the emotional heft to take it to a level of love--possibly because it was so short--but I liked it for what it was and it made me want to check out the writer's other works. Have you read anything else of hers?

[skygiants]

I haven't, but I had the same reaction! I didn't love it but I enjoyed and appreciated it, and some of the images will absolutely stick with me. I'd be really interested to read something longer, and see how I felt about it.

(I would LOVE to see a film -- the series of photographs was striking just described in prose but would be an incredible visual.)

[amelia_petkova]

Oh man, I love that book. Elizabeth Hand is one of my favorite authors for (creepy) supernatural fiction. I had a hard time keeping some of the characters separated while reading, too--it's easier if you listen to the audio book, because they used multiple voice actors.

[skygiants]

Yeah, several people in book group had listened to the audio version instead of reading it and I was really curious about that experience with different voice actors -- although a couple of them did say they wished they'd had the paper version so they could flip back and check the name at the start of the section!

[amelia_petkova]

I ended up reading it both ways--I had the ebook and the digital audio book checked out from NYPL's Overdrive collection. I think one of the things that makes the multiple first person pov tricky is that although there is more than one female narrator, the one in the band (I can't remember her name at the moment) is the only female main character.

[rachelmanija]

Thanks for the rec - I never even knew this existed till I saw your review, but I LOVED it.

[skygiants]

OH GOOD, I'm very glad! :D (Thank the person in my book club who suggested it, otherwise I too would probably never have heard of it.)

[greenygal]

I finally got around to reading this one this year--on a very tired plane ride where I had to read it in bits because I kept falling asleep, which honestly is probably not a bad way to experience it--and I really enjoyed it and wanted to thank you for the rec!

My only comment is to extremely agree with you on:
SHE HAD TWO ROWS OF TEETH??? AND THEY STILL PUT HER PHOTO ON THE ALBUM COVER?

--to the point where I actually think it's a slight weakness in the book. The most firmly rationalist member of the group says he voted against it, and that works fine in a "people are complicated" sort of way, but we don't get any other POVs on that decision so we don't know why everyone else, including the singer who threw up when she first saw the photos, voted for it. It felt like a bit of a cheat to me. But that's a minor complaint about a very fine and creepy book.