Scan barcode
A review by kvltprincess
The Red Tree by Caitlín R. Kiernan
4.0
This one was very strange, and it's one that I'm going to be thinking about for a while, I can tell.
Sarah Crowe moves to a house outside of Providence, Rhode Island to write after a horrible rift between herself and her girlfriend. Outside of the house is a creepy red oak. Inside the house, in the basement, Sarah finds a manuscript written by the house's former tenant, an anthropology professor who hung himself from the previously mentioned creepy red oak.
Things that are awesome:
1) The book is prefaced by commentary from Sarah's editor. The bulk of the book is written in journal entries from Sarah. Several pages worth of the deceased anthropologist's manuscript are also here, as well as snippets from other authors, mainly Lewis Carroll and Poe. Lovecraft's shadow, too, is hanging all over this thing, even though it is more implied than overt.
2) I don't know if this is a spoiler or not, because like I said, I'll be ruminating on this thing for a while. But just in case,
3) The way the story ties into Sarah's own grief and experiences in her own past, and how much of what happens seems to mirror those.
The thing that I wasn't crazy about: The ending. Just because it didn't seem to explain enough.
That being said, this was still a fantastic book and (as you can tell if you read my spoilery bits) it's got my mind quite boggled. If you are a horror geek and like Lovecraft and Poe, there is fun stuff in here for you. And if you don't mind not having ALL the answers, or at least having to think hard for them, The Red Tree is a fantastic read.
Sarah Crowe moves to a house outside of Providence, Rhode Island to write after a horrible rift between herself and her girlfriend. Outside of the house is a creepy red oak. Inside the house, in the basement, Sarah finds a manuscript written by the house's former tenant, an anthropology professor who hung himself from the previously mentioned creepy red oak.
Things that are awesome:
1) The book is prefaced by commentary from Sarah's editor. The bulk of the book is written in journal entries from Sarah. Several pages worth of the deceased anthropologist's manuscript are also here, as well as snippets from other authors, mainly Lewis Carroll and Poe. Lovecraft's shadow, too, is hanging all over this thing, even though it is more implied than overt.
2) I don't know if this is a spoiler or not, because like I said, I'll be ruminating on this thing for a while. But just in case,
Spoiler
Time and space in this thing are WONKY. At one point, Constance tells Sarah about her experience in which she was the ghost for another person, in a sort of string theory concept. I think that maybe that is the lynch pin here. Time and space seem to be very thin around the red oak, with characters in the book in modern day meeting people who died long before. But again, this is something I need to think more about.3) The way the story ties into Sarah's own grief and experiences in her own past, and how much of what happens seems to mirror those.
The thing that I wasn't crazy about: The ending. Just because it didn't seem to explain enough.
That being said, this was still a fantastic book and (as you can tell if you read my spoilery bits) it's got my mind quite boggled. If you are a horror geek and like Lovecraft and Poe, there is fun stuff in here for you. And if you don't mind not having ALL the answers, or at least having to think hard for them, The Red Tree is a fantastic read.