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A review by juliechristinejohnson
Hold the Dark by William Giraldi
4.0
"The dead don't haunt the living. The living haunt themselves."
In the tradition of David Vann, Daniel Woodrell, Denis Johnson and Cormac McCarthy, William Giraldi writes of evil things set in terrible, beautiful landscapes where secrets are easy to hide and humanity rots in cellars and forests or is beset upon by wild animals that feast on the carrion of our nightmares.
Hold the Dark is a sort of Revenant for the modern age, a tale of beasts and hunting, snow and corrupt hearts. It did not surprise me to learn this 2014 novel was quickly optioned and the film is currently in production. The setting is a vibrant, wretched character in its own right, the pacing breathless, plot idiosyncratic, characters iconic.
The premise starts, takes a radical shift to the left, and never entirely returns, but it is this: In a remote village in the Alaskan wilds, wolves are stealing children. Medora Slone, a mother of one of the stolen, calls upon world-renowned wolf expert Russell Core to find her child's killer. What Core, who at sixty is hollowed out by his own tragedies, finds waiting for him in Keelut sets off a search through Alaskan backcountry that is painted in a nightmare of black and white and blood all over. Oddly, Core's character shifts into the shadows; he is replaced on center stage by Vernon Slone, Medora's husband, returned from a war in a distant desert to find his wife missing and his only child dead.
There are so many trigger warnings to this novel that you really should just stay away if violence troubles you as a reader. Shades of Deliverance, of Blood Meridian—you get the picture. Sadly, what you won't get by avoiding this novel is Giraldi's taut, shimmering prose. His language is hypnotic and mythic and worth the price of a cruel and dreadful story. Good luck.
In the tradition of David Vann, Daniel Woodrell, Denis Johnson and Cormac McCarthy, William Giraldi writes of evil things set in terrible, beautiful landscapes where secrets are easy to hide and humanity rots in cellars and forests or is beset upon by wild animals that feast on the carrion of our nightmares.
Hold the Dark is a sort of Revenant for the modern age, a tale of beasts and hunting, snow and corrupt hearts. It did not surprise me to learn this 2014 novel was quickly optioned and the film is currently in production. The setting is a vibrant, wretched character in its own right, the pacing breathless, plot idiosyncratic, characters iconic.
The premise starts, takes a radical shift to the left, and never entirely returns, but it is this: In a remote village in the Alaskan wilds, wolves are stealing children. Medora Slone, a mother of one of the stolen, calls upon world-renowned wolf expert Russell Core to find her child's killer. What Core, who at sixty is hollowed out by his own tragedies, finds waiting for him in Keelut sets off a search through Alaskan backcountry that is painted in a nightmare of black and white and blood all over. Oddly, Core's character shifts into the shadows; he is replaced on center stage by Vernon Slone, Medora's husband, returned from a war in a distant desert to find his wife missing and his only child dead.
There are so many trigger warnings to this novel that you really should just stay away if violence troubles you as a reader. Shades of Deliverance, of Blood Meridian—you get the picture. Sadly, what you won't get by avoiding this novel is Giraldi's taut, shimmering prose. His language is hypnotic and mythic and worth the price of a cruel and dreadful story. Good luck.