Wylding Hall

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Perhaps there was just a little *too* much left hidden for my tastes. That's not to say that I want more concrete answers on what actually happened to Julian Blake that summer, the open ended nature of the mystery worked well. I think what I really wanted was for the supernatural menace at the heart of the mystery to play a larger part in the story. Just a few more inexplicable occurrences or perhaps a more pervasive build-up of the supernatural menace surrounding Julian would have gone a long way for me.

It’s the oral history format that makes this slow and gradual introduction of the haunted element possible in this book because it’s a format that means we never get the story straight on. Various characters—who all note that they were all drunk and high during the summer that Windhollow Faire spent at Wylding Hall, and so perhaps might not have the most accurate memory of things—insist that they are the one whose account should be read as true, but none of them have the whole story. There’s room for weirdness to slip in around the edges, and it does, quietly creeping in, until it become impossible to ignore. I went into this story without any preconceived notions. When I read the first few portions that were little more than a single person's recollection of a certain day or incident, I'll admit, I didn't think it would amount to much. In the aftermath of the mysterious death of their lead singer, the young members of a now-legendary British acid folk band hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient English country house with its own dark secrets. There they record Wylding Hall, the album that makes their reputation—but at a terrifying cost, when Julian Blake, their new lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen again. Even the few lyrics we are told could have held multiple meanings, dependent upon who was doing the reminiscing at the time. With some, it was a common folk song; with others, something much . . . deeper. The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings by Angela Slatter / Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall (2015, tie)During the summer of 1972, their manager, Tom Haring, rents them a secluded rural mansion called Wylding Hall so they can work on an album without distractions. This was chilling and delicious, and just what I needed having just been enmeshed in an ultimately satisfying but quite long fantasy novel. Yeah, I know: I'm being a snark, 'cause I wasn't with Windhollow Faire from the very beginning and didn't really know her. So sue me. And it's true: with or without Arianna, they were getting a lot of gigs. Windhollow Faire had just come out that Christmas — their first album — and sales were good. There was no music press like there is now; you didn't have Pitchfork or YouTube and all that stuff. Rolling Stone had only been around for a few years, and you had Melody Maker and NME. There was no way to really publicize your band except by playing, like, constantly. Which they did. I think I was conscious, as I was reading, of a certain tension between the need to present a horror story alongside keep the characters, sketched as they were, at least vaguely consistent. And, for me, this didn’t always quite work. For example, the opening chapter is from the POV of Tom, the producer/manager guy and he closes his section with: One pet peeve was also the fact that, apparently, none of these band members spoke to each other – ever – about their experiences. Only now, with this documentary, have they ever shared it. Why? Why would they never discuss their experiences in the hall, especially after what happened in the end?

Wylding Hall takes the form of an oral history about a band and the mysterious events that occurred when they recorded their classic album at an old house in the English countryside, with the surviving band members, their manager, a journalist, a band member's ex-girlfriend, and a local talking about what happened -- the strange events in the house, the mysterious girl, the lead singer's disappearance.

There is a twist in the story near the end of the book that gave me a surprise, but no spoilers here as you will just have to read the book to find out for yourself.

Fans of Elizabeth Hand will recognize many of the themes and elements that she likes to return to. (In particular, it reminded me in feel of her story 'The Erl King.') Music, subcultures and magic entwine to create a web that will enrapture the reader just as surely as it entraps her characters. Within fifteen minutes, I imagine my jaw had dropped open as I continued on, spellbound by the tales before me. It was the differences in each person's memory, or the things that garnered their particular attention, that made this book so much more than a standard "Whatever happened to . . . ?" type of cliched story. Hand doesn't blatantly tell you how each member looks or what they believe happened, but through the voices of their friends--and to a lesser extent, their own words--I felt like I knew each of them intimately. It works so well, because of the characters - how each person is affected (or not) is influenced by who they are. The crafted scenarios make even the oddest events plausible. Just enough is explained, and just enough left as enigma. Elizabeth Hand is an American writer who has written fourteen novels and five collections of short fiction and essays. Besides writing creatively, she is also a reviewer, critic and essayist for the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. On top of all that, she is on the faculty of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. Fun fact, she even writes Star Wars spin offs! The NovelMany thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Media for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are my own. Erudite Stoner: Everyone was getting stoned in this milieu, and Julian was particularly interested in esoteric topics.