In a Dark Wood [Paperback]

Fairy tales are stuffed to the brim with dark woods--dark woods in which dwarves and hermits lurk, trees bleed when struck with an axe and princes and princesses are tested to within a hair's breadth of their lives. When Benedick Hunter finds a book of fairy tales written by his mother he knows there are dark woods within but is unaware of just how dangerous fairy tales can be. In A Dark Wood is his journey to discover his mother's secrets, the truths behind her stories and why she committed suicide when he was still a child. This is also a journey to find out more about himself, his "amorphous moods" and the "stink of failure" that plagues him following a divorce and a long spell of unemployment.

In A Dark Wood unravels through a matrix of fairy tales and half-forgotten memories leading from London in the 1960s to present-day New York and the white verandaed houses of North Carolina (hemmed in, of course, by dark woods). It's Amanda Craig's fourth novel, following the acclaimed A Vicious Circle, which is currently being developed for BBC television. Craig confirms with this novel that she is a voice to listen to, a bold writer who is not frightened to deliver a harrowing read. That said, In A Dark Wood has a lighter side and is shot through with a magical feel--as all good fairy tales should be.--Jane Honey --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘An intelligent and gripping novel. Wonderful, page-turning storytelling.’The Times

‘Exhibits the same incisiveness and intelligence as her acclaimed A Vicious Circle. Witty and disturbing, it is a novel of both accomplishment and charm.’ Daily Mail

‘A book within a book, a rich plot with plenty of on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense, an abundance of quirky but believable character…’In A Dark Wood’ is an elegant anti-fairy tale for adults that keeps you guessing until the last few pages.’Daily Express

'An eerie novel full of fairy-tale menace…beguilingly told and hypnotic.' Independent on Sunday

'An eerie novel full of fairy-tale menace beguilingly told and hypnotic.'

A major new work by the bestselling author of A Vicious Circle, on a larger scale and more serious than her previous fiction, but with her characteristic satirical edge and page-turningly suspenseful plotting.

Benedick Hunter is a failure. A divorced father and unemployed actor sunk in self-pity, his life takes a new direction when he finds a book of his dead mother’s fairy-tales in which real people and events from a tragic past seem to be depicted. Hunter embarks on a bizarre and darkly comic quest which takes him and his small son Cosmo to America – to the heart of parenthood, manic depression, fairy-tales and love.

In a Dark Wood is, like all my novels, about the nature of creativity - in this case, about creativity, suffering and madness. That may sound like a very bleak subject, but although its plot involves suicide, divorce, manic depression and incest it is, as perceptive readers have noticed, also a black comedy. Its title is from the opening of Dante's Inferno - "Midway upon the journey of our life/I found myself lost in a dark wood", and in the case of Benedick Hunter, the narrator, he finds himself in some very dark woods indeed. At first these belong to the fairytales his dead mother retold and illustrated. It is when he finds an old book of hers, while packing up his belongings in the house he shared with his ex-wife and two children, that he is impelled to go on a quest to discover more about her. Benedick knows she committed suicide in Primrose Hill in the 1960s, but can't remember anything about her. However, each fairytale seems to give him clues about her nature, and his own, and this eventually takes him across the Atlantic to her native North Carolina, and some real woods with a pair of what his son insists are real witches.
What inspired this, the most dark and difficult of my novels to date, was noticing how often children's picture-books depict their heroes as lost in a dark wood as a metaphor for difficulty, danger, confusion and despair. The old meaning of "wood", in Shakespeare's time (see A Midsummer Night's Dream) was "madness". I was fascinated by this,and by seeing how close small children come to lunacy -and bring their parents, too, at times.
The novel was published in the UK by 4th Estate in 2000, but the Doubleday version is superior, not only in its presentation but in its editing. The US hardback has exactly the picture I wanted to have all along, and was meticulously checked, so this is the one to buy...if you do buy it.

Amanda Craig was born in 1959. She is married, with two children, lives in London and reviews widely.