A Review of Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham
Winterset Hollow is one of the more impressive debut novels you will find out there in contemporary fantasy. It sets itself apart from other novels with a dark, twisted take on meeting our favorite characters from our most cherished book. It blends horror with an almost coming-of-age story, in particular, the lies we were told as children.
Eamon’s favorite novel is Winterset Hollow, a fantasy novel akin to The Hobbit or the movie The Secret of NIM. There are talking animals and the quoted excerpts taken from the novel within a novel are written in verse, reminding me of the songs and poems of Tolkien as well as other children’s fables from early Disney and Brother Grimm. In a trip of a lifetime, he goes to the home of the author Edward Addington, a mansion on an island off the coast of Washington state.
Along with him are two of his closest friends, Caroline and Mark. As they explore the island and the grounds of the author’s estate, they are shocked to meet the characters from the book, the talking animals! Addington’s book wasn’t a fantasy novel at all but based on real life creatures and events. The real story of Addington and the animals turns out to be a lot darker.
The premise reminded me of comedy sketches from Robot Chicken on Adult Swim. What if your favorite childhood characters, action figures, cartoons, and movies were all actually real? What would the characters be like and how would we treat them? In most cases, they are exploited or found to be broken and twisted, similar to the tragic stories of childhood stars.
Winterset Hollow isn’t a comedy. Within it, Addington’s novel is the only sadistic joke. Winterset Hollow also isn’t a conventional horror story. Unlike the recent horror movies with children’s characters that are more silly than anything else, this is a story that takes itself seriously. The protagonist and his friends are not stupid teenagers meant to be meat sacks for body horror. Durham commits to humanizing them, in particular Eamon, describing how Addington’s novel impacted his life in profound ways.
This also isn’t a monster or slasher film-like story. Durham did a tremendous job giving depth to all the human and animal characters. The horror that follows isn’t meant for cheap scares and thrills. It is an examination of deep trauma.
The secondary characters are not developed much yet Durham does shift to their point of view in the middle and later chapters. This didn’t work as well because we don’t learn much about them and none are all that interesting. There are also numerous shifts in point-of-view within chapters, almost within a single paragraph. This didn’t help the story much and wasn’t necessary.
Durham also tended to have digressions of purple prose, with Eamon taking time to have mini flashbacks to his traumatic childhood, and his own complicated feelings about what unfolds. This came with psychobabble presented in semi-poetic fashion. This was a little jarring at times, taking the reader out of the situation to examine something that really wasn’t nearly as interesting. The book didn’t need most of these digressions and would’ve been better if they were done or even spoken about with the other characters during periods of calm.
It wasn’t that the digressions or connecting to Eamon’s past weren’t important, only that it was clumsy and didn’t payoff as well as intended. It was overshadowed by the talking animals and all their issues.
The loss of innocence theme was compelling with the revelations behind Addington’s novel and how it turns Eamon’s world upside down Learning the truth behind the idealized image can certainly be disappointing.
Winterset Hollow takes it a step farther. What if they aren’t just disappointing, but complete nightmares?
The truth behind Addington’s novel is also an examination of how those who write history can cloak themselves and their families in greatness while hiding dark truths. Here, it isn’t really revisionist history, since the novel is a work of fiction that no one would ever suspect was based on real events. The exploitation of a miracle of nature, the viciousness and lack of compassion were stunning, potentially meant to be a critique of the Wild West frontiersmen, of hunting, and how we depict explorers.
The animals could be seen as analogous to First Nations that were conquered in the U.S.’s march westward. They could also be a more direct connection to our domination of nature, taking leisure in killing animals or bending them to our will. Either way, this book had much more depth than a typical horror novel.
Overall, it is a great read, compelling, and insightful. The stylistic issues are relatively minor and the captivating story more than overcomes them. I highly recommend this one. Just don’t read it to your kids.