The Red Tree

Dec 06, 2012 BarkLessWagMore rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sarah Crowe is a writer suffering from writer's block after her relationship with her girlfriend comes to a devastating end. She decides to rent an isolated old farm house out in the boonies of Rhode Island to recover and hide from the world.

Whilst poking around in the home she comes across an old typewriter which eventually leads her to a manuscript obsessing on the red tree on the property written by a previous renter who committed suicide on the grounds. Sarah begins to have increasingly stra...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, horror

I have admired Caitlin Kiernan's short stories for some time now, so I was excited about finally getting to one of her novels. I wasn't disappointed. The Red Tree is a very ambitious effort, an accomplished metafiction that is certainly horrific, but also stands as a piece of literature. It's a damn shame the book is saddled with some of the worst, and most misleading, cover art I've seen in some time. (It's packaged as a YA novel, with a brooding goth chick on the front. If I were to rate this,...more I have admired Caitlin Kiernan's short stories for some time now, so I was excited about finally getting to one of her novels. I wasn't disappointed. The Red Tree is a very ambitious effort, an accomplished metafiction that is certainly horrific, but also stands as a piece of literature. It's a damn shame the book is saddled with some of the worst, and most misleading, cover art I've seen in some time. (It's packaged as a YA novel, with a brooding goth chick on the front. If I were to rate this, like a film, I would give it a NC-17.) The novel deserves better than that, and should be on the short shelf of genre fans, beside Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House, Straub's Ghost Story (IMHO, RT is better), Arthur Machen's collected stories, Poe, and of course Lovecraft.

The story, a first person narrative, is about a middle aged writer, Sarah Crowe, who moves to rural Rhode Island after the death (a suicide) of her lover, Amanda. Sarah is suffering from writer's block, and a dwindling bank account. She sets up shop in a very old farm house, whose previous occupant, a teacher and writer from a nearby college, has committed suicide. As Sarah explores the house, she discovers the teacher's unfinished manuscript, a study on local folklore (very Blair Witch), with a particular focus on a supposedly haunted red oak tree which is about 70 yards from the house. Sarah is not a reliable narrator. What follows is a slow disintegration that is hardly detectable at first. Kieran's skill in unfolding this disintegration (which is incredibly sad) is about as nuanced as any I have read. In the field of horror, you can't help but be reminded of Jackson's Eleanor from The Haunting of Hill House. But the echoes, or homages, are faint, since Kiernan is entirely her own writer, a true original. Her ability to integrate influences (and one major one here is Carrol's Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland) is astounding, leaving the reader wanting to look up the various influences for this fine novel. I'm reluctant to reveal much more. There are stories within stories, and you need to keep alert to the various clues. If you like your horror simple, with Good vs. Evil, with a Final Resolution, you will be disappointed. But if you like your reality blurred, and like to see an emphasis on atmosphere, then you should enjoy The Red Tree. Why this novel didn't win some sort of award (Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson), is beyond me. I've read enough within the genre to know this one is special.(less)

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Dec 02, 2012 Marvin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

I've been meaning to try a book by Caitlin R. Kiernan. I chose this one because I need a novel with "Red" in the title for a reading challenge. We Goodreads people pick books for the stupidest reasons, don't we?

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So I finished the novel and I'm not sure if this is typical Kiernan. It has many of the traits I've been warned about including the wandering off-topic and obligatory lesbian sex. But it reads like more of a tribute to a style of horror story that might be described "Unreli...more

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Oct 11, 2009 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy

I liked this and was sufficiently freaked out (I didn't really realize it was a horror novel until about half way in), but I was hoping for a bit more supernatural and a bit less psychoanalysis. Which it wasn't even really that, more Sarah getting stuck in her head too much (and lord knows I know enough about that myself). I actually identified quite a bit with Sarah - mostly the overthinking things to death, hating her own writing, seeing metaphors in everything. I like to think I've moved past...more

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May 17, 2013 Chance rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Aside from Stephen King, I haven't read a lot (or, any) horror. Not doing any research into the author, I think I thought it was fantasy. That is, until it started creeping me out almost immediately. The atmosphere, imagery, and tone is so well done. It's clingy and itchy and brilliantly done.

The book itself, which is very metatextual, makes reference to Blair Witch Project, which is an apt comparison. The book's frame story makes it seem as though this is a "found" text. Plus: creepy woods and...more

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Apr 15, 2013 Clare rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've not read a Caitlin Kiernan book in a long time, and was quite nostalgically going back, hoping to find something spooky and dark and poetic. It has those elements, which is why it has some stars, but little else to it - as if that is all the author has relied upon and has eschewed a cohesive story, structure and credible characters. This book has rave reviews from so many, but I cannot get at all what they're talking about. To me, it meanders and rambles in an incoherent fashion around the...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Shainna rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, urban-fantasy

This was the second book of this author that I've read. I first read The Drowning Girl and I have to say this: I want my money back because it's pretty much the same.

The characters had the same kind of style, except Sarah cursed a lot and the protagonist of The Drowning Girl didn't. But they wrote in the same manner - here are all these digressions, here are all these citations from similar authors if not the same. Look - here are similar instances of lovers! One left and one committed suicide....more

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Nov 25, 2012 Allana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wont write down the story line of The Red Tree as it's been done already.

This is the first Caitlín R. Kiernan book I have read. The author was recommended to me as someone who writes dark literature which is creepy and builds a sense of dread, rather than being blood thirsty. Just the kind of dark or weird literature I like.

However, I found myself seriously un-creeped-out by this story. Nevertheless, I kept reading, mainly because I enjoyed Kiernan's writing.

Sarah, the main character: I did ge...more I wont write down the story line of The Red Tree as it's been done already.

This is the first Caitlín R. Kiernan book I have read. The author was recommended to me as someone who writes dark literature which is creepy and builds a sense of dread, rather than being blood thirsty. Just the kind of dark or weird literature I like.

However, I found myself seriously un-creeped-out by this story. Nevertheless, I kept reading, mainly because I enjoyed Kiernan's writing.

Sarah, the main character: I did get to like her for her scattered thoughts and in your face attitude, but I also wanted to shake her at times to get her to see others' points of view, if only to make life a little easier for herself. Sarah's descent into madness was keenly drawn and I did sympathise with her, a lot.

Sarah's ex, deceased lover Amanda and Constance the artist who takes over the attic in the house, I felt at times to be one and the same character (or the second character a figment of Sarah's imagination), but when the revelation about Constance appeared, I have to admit I was a little disappointed, because by this point in the story, I was expecting something more...possibly horrific (but probably should have known better).

In fact, as others have pointed out, the whole premise of the horror (or darkness) in this book is made out of suggestions, some of which the new reader will get, others which may take longer to filter down. Most of the time we are left to make up our own minds about what is really happening or has happened and the reality of it all. And, as we have such an unreliable narrator in Sarah, the only way we can get a clue is to follow her in her descent into madness and not look for any ironclad conclusions, even about Sarah's demise itself, otherwise we will be sorely disappointed.

Unlike some other reviewers, I was happy to go along with the journal-style writing and the insertion of the so-called research journal. I liked the references to other literature, especially when it opened up more suggestions and relationships, but found it a little tiresome in places when all I wanted was to get back to what was actually happening.

Many have said that The Red Tree reminds them of House of Leaves in its written style, so I'm off to read that next, if I can find a hard copy (as the ebook version evidently loses a lot of the feel of the book).

As to Kiernan, I will definitely read more of her work, but possibly after a break :)

One note for Kindle readers:
I read The Red Tree on my Kindle and on first opening, the novel opened just past the editor's preface.
You need to scroll back to read the preface. It is part of the story :).(less)

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Nov 19, 2012 Matt Schiariti rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was pulled in by the good reviews...

and left disappointed....Let me preface this by saying I don't mind character driven stories. I don't mind moody and atmospheric stories that can sometimes leave the reader with more questions than answers. I don't need everything spelled out. In the world of creepy novels, sometimes the less that's said, the better because the imagination takes off and can creep you out more than what's written.

All of that being said, I was bored to tears and completely not...more

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Jun 15, 2012 Meagan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: modern horror fans, in the vein of haunted house, an vs nature, man vs self

Shelves: horror, lesbian-fiction

Every time I read Caitlin R. Kiernan's work, I am surprised. I don't know why I forget how good she is, but I do. I think it's the terrible marketing she is subjected to. I look at the cover art and think, "Don't I like this writer? Would I ever read something that looked like this and like it?" She is indeed the living embodiment of not judging a book by the cover.
The first works I read of hers were Silk and Tales of Pain and Wonder, they blew me away. I was depressed for weeks after reading Si...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

The story is written as Sarah's journal, colouring the pages with her flawed perspective, and in fact a false editor's preface introduces the work as the posthumous ramblings of the novelist in the final months of her life. In journal form, it's a very different reading experience than a more traditional novel. The narrator is unreliable, and grows steadily more so as the story continues. There are big holes wherein the reader is expected to extrapolate, as best they can, what happened, what may...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Hannah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-setting, real-world, scary

Often I read books or watch films, and the momentum pulls me forward enough that I overlook plotholes or pacing problems. This is all well and good, but then in hindsight I realise what the problems were, and I no longer enjoy it at the same level. For me The Red Tree provoked the opposite effect: I enjoyed it more in retrospect, and now feel pretty fond of it.

The story begins with an editor writing a preface about the troubled narrator Sarah Crowe. This lays hints about her unreliability while...more Often I read books or watch films, and the momentum pulls me forward enough that I overlook plotholes or pacing problems. This is all well and good, but then in hindsight I realise what the problems were, and I no longer enjoy it at the same level. For me The Red Tree provoked the opposite effect: I enjoyed it more in retrospect, and now feel pretty fond of it.

The story begins with an editor writing a preface about the troubled narrator Sarah Crowe. This lays hints about her unreliability while highlighting the main mystery of just what happened to her in her remote Rhode Island house. Then the book launches into Sarah's diary-style account of her time near the red tree. Having retreated to this rural abode to recuperate from a difficult end to a relationship, Sarah uses writing as therapy, but when she finds old papers belonging to a previous occupant who obsessed over the red oak tree nearby, things start becoming very strange. Sarah begins having disturbing dreams; she begins losing track of time; and a housemate moves in who has some odd ideas about time-travel and ghosts.

From the start I had issues with Sarah's likeability: I found her an interesting character but not someone I wanted to spend my time reading about, and the confessional style of her narrative often slips into self-pity. However, as the novel continued I felt more warm towards her, and by the time I reached the uncanny, ambiguous ending I was fully in her head. (Not that this is necessarily a good thing: Kiernan deftly and painfully depicts Sarah's degradation of her psychological state.) On a sidenote, it was refreshing to see a lesbian protagonist, and the depiction of middle-aged female sexuality, in a horror-ish novel.

I found the supernatural elements frustratingly sparse. Long extracts from a nineteenth-century parapsychologist's journal give the impression that strange things are afoot, but Sarah mostly encounters this through dream sequences. During my read-through, I scoffed at the "horror" label and was frustrated at the lack of things-that-go-bump-in-the-night.

However, I could not stop reading. Kiernan's narrative style is immensely engaging and I literally had to carry the book around my flat because I was desperate to know what would happen. Then, my scorn about the supernatural elements came back to haunt me: Kiernan is excellent at creating unsettling, striking images that wouldn't leave my mind, and in the end I had to leave the light on a while.

Kiernan has said she is uncomfortable with the horror label, but nonetheless she has created a psychologically unnerving, unsettling and downright creepy novel. With the layered narrative, metafictional feel and thrashing, frustrated unease from the narrator, it was what I wanted from House of Leaves: a genuinely disturbing novel which still gives pause for thought weeks after reading.(less)

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Jun 25, 2011 Alex Wells rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Part way through The Red Tree, I congratulated myself on not feeling creeped out by this excellently creepy story. However, by the time I finished the book and put it down, there is no way in Hell I would have gone down into my cellar after dark. During the day maybe, but only while resolutely thinking about laundry and avoiding the dark corners.
Kiernan's writing is so well-crafted and her research so excellent that despite the ambiguities of the plot, or perhaps because of them, I was drawn in...more

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May 22, 2011 Traci rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

First of all I should state Caitlin R. Kiernan can definately write. I did like her style and narrative voice. I would recommend this to most readers of horror even though not everyone will like it. One of those books that even though it didn't end up being a favorite I'm glad I read it. However the plot itself was almost completely missing. And what was there I have seen before and nothing was a surprise. Even though I liked the voice of the writer I didn't like Sarah. And I got the feeling Kie...more

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Apr 29, 2011 Jeremy Preacher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

I picked this off the corpse of the local Borders on a whim. It was a total win. I don't usually care for horror, but this was fantastic.

The "diary found after mysterious death" is not a new framing, but it works very well here. The horror here is largely - although not entirely - psychological, as the narrator becomes increasingly unreliable and it's harder and harder to tell what is real. It's also not shock horror - nothing jumps out of closets, and while there's mention of gore it's more in...more

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Feb 21, 2011 Erin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

I wanted to like this more than I did. A glance through the other negative/ambivalent reviews shows a lot of disappointment in harsh language, and more than a touch of thinly-veiled homophobia - let me say now, clearly and unequivocally: those were not my issues with this book. I think the narrator's (Sarah's) voice got to me, which made it difficult to enjoy the book, since it's written in the form of her journal. She should be an incredibly sympathetic character - within the first few pages, y...more I wanted to like this more than I did. A glance through the other negative/ambivalent reviews shows a lot of disappointment in harsh language, and more than a touch of thinly-veiled homophobia - let me say now, clearly and unequivocally: those were not my issues with this book. I think the narrator's (Sarah's) voice got to me, which made it difficult to enjoy the book, since it's written in the form of her journal. She should be an incredibly sympathetic character - within the first few pages, you know that (a) she's been through a lot before any of the book takes place, and (b) she will go through a lot before the book is over. But there was something about her I just couldn't get behind. There was just this sort of annoyingly self-aware, faux-gritty tone to it all that drove me crazy - it's the same sort of vibe that regularly makes me put down urban fantasy books. I do think that maybe if a bit more had been devoted to her actual thoughts or emotions - things about Amanda, or about her seizures - I would have found her more relatable (I don't need characters to be sunshiney and happy and likable all the time, but I do want to care a little bit, you know?).

And some of the touches that were supposed to make it feel more like a journal actually had the opposite effect - the reminders that things were paraphrased from memory, pointing out when something had been copied down into a conveniently-placed notebook, etc. The overly-specific music choices, too - maybe the author (Kiernan, not her author-character) actually does take the time to note in her own journal exactly what she's listening to at any given time. I know I don't. I think this would have worked better as a traditional first-person narrative without the journal conceit, but I see how that would have compromised some of the story's structure. There were also a couple of places where I felt threads had been dropped, which seems like a big flaw.

I like books with unreliable narrators, I like books with slow descents into madness and/or uncertainty, I like books with invented historical documents. And, at times, I did like this - Constance and Sarah's relationship was always interesting, if often frustrating (as it was meant to be). The cellar, the House of Leaves-esque bits, and what seemed to be a very well-drawn location (I've never been to Rhode Island, so I can't speak to the authenticity, but it sure felt real) were all much appreciated. I just felt like if Sarah's personality was meant to be the glue that bound everything together, it wasn't working.

Edit: after writing this, I read a little bit more about the author, and was surprised by just how much of Sarah Crowe is drawn directly from Caitlin Kiernan's own life. It makes the darker, less appealing sides of Sarah more understandable - Kiernan doesn't seem like the type to write up an idealized version of herself, and, in fact, seems more likely to be extra hard on herself in this fictionalized form. I still didn't love the book, but knowing how personal it was to the author does change my view a bit.(less)

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Jan 11, 2011 Donald rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Yaay, lesbian horror/suspense fiction . . .

This book is well-written; I simply didn't like it. I didn't like the main character at any point during the book, which makes it difficult to care about what may happen to her. If I hadn't had to read it for work, it wouldn't have passed the 100-page test, which made the remaining 280+ pages tedious.

The book goes with the idea that this is an unfinished manuscript by an author who was writing a journal while living in a house near a supposed "evil tree...more Yaay, lesbian horror/suspense fiction . . .

This book is well-written; I simply didn't like it. I didn't like the main character at any point during the book, which makes it difficult to care about what may happen to her. If I hadn't had to read it for work, it wouldn't have passed the 100-page test, which made the remaining 280+ pages tedious.

The book goes with the idea that this is an unfinished manuscript by an author who was writing a journal while living in a house near a supposed "evil tree." She finds the unfinished manuscript of a professor who had lodged in the same rental house and killed himself, supposedly because of something to do with the tree and the research on it and local scary tales he was doing. So, the book starts with an "editor's note" that tells us what's going on, which basically ruins the book because it says the author died. Great, thanks. And so, most of the book is the author's rambling, digressing journal entries, interspersed with portions of the professor's ms. she types into her journal so we know what she's been reading and obsessing over.

The problem is that the journal entries are just that: journal entries and therefore first-person narrative. This allows the author of this book basically to write whatever bizarre stuff comes into her head and justify it as "journaling." She even goes so far as to have her author-character tell us she digresses, apparently so we'll be okay with it. It's not okay. It's annoying. The author also uses lots of dreams that the author-character tells us about and then gives us a diatribe (in the author-character's voice) about using dreams in fiction, and readers (us) should accept the dreams and the unreliability of first-person narrators and just "get over it." Oh, well, since you said we could . . .

It's also a lot of build-up that leads basically nowhere. We know early on that she dies, so the abrupt end of the journals does nothing to make us scared or uneasy. The whole tree thing is so diluted by the professor's ramblings in his ms. that by the time she figures out just what the tree is, we already pretty much know that, and it's not that interesting.(less)

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Oct 28, 2010 Chibineko rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'll warn you- if you are looking for something that is more akin to a Stephen King-esque "Pennywise is jumping out of the sewer" type of scary story, then you'll be best to avoid this book. This book's scares are more psychological than anything else.

That said, the premise of the book intrigued me. It follows Sarah, an author with a huge case of writer's block who decides to rent out an old farmhouse close to a spooky red oak tree growing close by it. With the beginning of the book starting fro...more

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Jun 10, 2010 Orrin Grey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Basically, The Red Tree is a masterpiece of suggestion. If I had to show someone an illustration of how suggestion builds up the supernatural, this might be the first book I handed them. The events that actually unfold directly on the page don't really amount to a whole lot, but the buildup of folklore, stories, quotations, background, etc. create an atmosphere that makes the suggestion of whats going on seem increasingly potent and cosmic in scope.

Kiernan is, in some ways, an author whose work...more

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Mar 06, 2010 David Wilson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are few things that terrify me more than the thought of my brain ceasing to function properly. I can imagine dozens of truly horrifying situations and experiences I might be forced to endure, but I know from simple moments where I can’t remember a name, or a word that I should be intimately familiar with, that if I had to question my own sanity, or worry that others were questioning it, I’d be off the ledge and free-falling pretty quickly.

In The Red Tree, Caitlin Kiernan delivers exactly t...more There are few things that terrify me more than the thought of my brain ceasing to function properly. I can imagine dozens of truly horrifying situations and experiences I might be forced to endure, but I know from simple moments where I can’t remember a name, or a word that I should be intimately familiar with, that if I had to question my own sanity, or worry that others were questioning it, I’d be off the ledge and free-falling pretty quickly.

In The Red Tree, Caitlin Kiernan delivers exactly that fear through the words and thoughts of her protagonist, Sarah Crowe. Sarah has left behind a life crippled by the suicide of her lover, whose name we never learn because when she writes about her, she calls her by another name. She has retreated to a small house in Rhode Island to write her next novel and get herself together. The author also manages to make you care that both of these things, in fact, happen. The author is not to be trusted.

Sarah finds that the previous tenant of her new retreat was an author – a parapsychologist researching the murky history surrounding a huge Red Oak tree. That tree stands within easy site of the windows of her new home, and the history is a crazy one filled with hints of ancient evil, sacrifice, and lycanthrope. That previous tenant committed suicide. There’s a lot of that in the novel. Sarah finds his manuscript hidden in a basement that is not exactly a basement…sometimes.

This is the point in a review I hate. I have a lot to say about this book, but a lot of what I’d like to say gives away too much. The point is, everything that happens to Sarah feels very real. You get an almost Lovecraftian sensation of worlds overlapping at some mystic portal. You can feel the ancient “ley lines” rippling beneath the foundations of the old house, and through the roots of the tree. The stories, the reports of strange happenings surrounding this arboreal menace throughout history, add to the sensation of other-worldliness, and strengthen either the reality of the events in the book – or the foundations of the insanity invading Sarah’s brain.

The thing is that there’s a very fine line involved in this story. It’s possible that it’s the story of an eroding mind, locked away and unable to cope with a string of events that began decades earlier when the protagonist witnessed a traumatic event. It’s also possible that it’s a detailed narration of one person’s encounter with unknown, unknowable forces. There may be a girl named Amanda, and another named Constance…or it might be a story written and typed by an author no longer in any type of contact with reality. It might be the rendering of insanity into words, created in solitude.

And at its core, that’s what this book is about. Solitude. Loneliness. Different characters deal with these issues throughout the novel, all through the filter of Sarah’s mind and the words she types. These words include a story she doesn’t even remember writing, and yet believes that she did write. We never know if she did, or did not, if the events in the story are real, or merely a version of some similar event in Sarah’s past – the relationship that drove her to isolation and despair – it’s impossible for the reader to tell.

The true terror is in the fact that, in the case of many things that either happen or do not happen during the course of the novel, the protagonist finds herself unable to separate one from the other. If it’s all happening, the world as she knows it is a lie. If it’s not happening, she’s going (or has already gone) insane. Even the source of that insanity – external from the oak tree or internal – is in question. As I said, the author is not to be trusted. The book, though? It’s amazing.

I’m not going to belabor a point that I have covered in the past, or that others have covered more eloquently. Genre fiction is littered with mediocrity. It’s much easier for an “okay” author to write weird fiction and get away with it. Following trends and writing to the cliché of the day is the norm. Caitlin Kiernan marches to the beat of her own drummer. She is literate, educated, and in touch with the levels of her mind that shift images to words with precision and power. This is not a “horror” novel, it’s a Caitlin Kiernan novel – and to my way of thinking that’s a much more precious thing. There are only a handful of authors of whom you’ll hear me say that.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone, but in particular to fans of Lovecraft or Ramsey Campbell, The characters are very real, but the world is surreal and untrustworthy enough that it might take multiple readings to get everything straight in your mind.(less)

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Feb 15, 2010 Juushika rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: status-owned, favorite-and-formative

Author Sarah Crowe flees Atlanta and the end of her recent relationship for an old farmhouse in rural Rhode Island. There she discovers a manuscript written by the house's previous tenant, which chronicles the long and haunting history of a massive red oak growing on the property. As Sarah's own obsession with the red tree grows, she records her experiences in a journal, published posthumously by her former book editor. Kiernan is a master storyteller with a unique voice and a superb handle on t...more Author Sarah Crowe flees Atlanta and the end of her recent relationship for an old farmhouse in rural Rhode Island. There she discovers a manuscript written by the house's previous tenant, which chronicles the long and haunting history of a massive red oak growing on the property. As Sarah's own obsession with the red tree grows, she records her experiences in a journal, published posthumously by her former book editor. Kiernan is a master storyteller with a unique voice and a superb handle on the balance between atmosphere, horror, and psychological underpinning. A densely multilayered narrative rich with dream imagery, The Red Tree may be her best book yet. It's haunting, beautiful, terrifying, and absolutely superb. I highly recommend it.

This is a palimpsest of a book where narratives are built within, and rest upon, other narratives. It's also a peon to writingto the creative process as both a source of and a means of interpreting anxiety. The onion-layered narratives and plentiful literary allusions create a densely multi-layered book. It has a constantly evolving, expanding plot which, combined with Kiernan's superb grasp of pacing and suspense, creates a compelling, page-turning story; the literary allusions, journal-styled narrative, and the dream imagery that gives the horror life create rich emotional and psychological depth. Kiernan is an outright skillful writer, with a lyrical voice, rich imagery, and a willingness to leave a bit of mystery in order to maintain suspense and rouse the reader's imagination and thought. The Red Tree is the rare sort of book which is at once dreamlike yet compulsively readable andlike Poe, Lovecraft, and the other sources that inspire itfinds psychological and emotional depth through horror.

The Red Tree may leave too much unsaid: too much of the horror left for the reader to imagine, andpartly necessitated by the "posthumous" narrativelingering questions as the book ends. But better a little too much mystery than a glut of unrealistic explanation, and this only fault isn't enough to detract from an incredible book. I find it easy to write critical book reviews, because identifying weaknesses is a rewardingly concrete, if subjective, task. Reviewing wonderful books is harder, in part because it's so difficult to pin down the factor that makes a book truly exceptional. Not its unique voice, strong narrative, or brilliant sense of horror as exhibited here, but its more insubstantial something that makes it greater than the sum of these parts. In my eyes all of Kiernan's work has that factor, but perhaps The Red Tree most of all. Only time will tell, but I believe this has become my favorite of Kiernan's works. It's an absorbing, thoughtful, frightening read, richly atmospheric and haunting in its dreamlike imagery, and exceptional in a sense that I can't quite pin down. I recommend it with complete enthusiasmas an introduction to Kiernan, and as a new favorite for her longtime fans.(less)

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Sep 23, 2009 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars

H. P. Lovecraft was a writer who managed to overcome his faults (frequently racist overtones and often stiff language) and evoke an atmosphere of dread and despair that turns even the hottest summer day into something dark and chilling. Many writers have written works based on the mythos of Lovecraft, many others have written clever homages to his fiction (see “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” by Neil Gaiman) but few, if any, manage to capture or even expound upon the atmosphere of horror and fear of th...more

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Sep 08, 2009 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: why-can-t-i-be-you

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Wow, wow, wow. It was interesting to read this after having freshly read The Haunting of Hill House, which this book owes a debt to (it freely acknowledges this in the text). There are a lot of literary shout-outs here, including The Bloody Chamber, which I also read over the summer; this was fun because I felt all smart that I'd read the books in question. Except, of course, for those I hadn't. This was also an illuminating example of how getting off on the wrong foot with an author's work shou...more

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Aug 26, 2009 Derek Pegritz rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone I know.

Shelves: lovecraftian

Please ignore the god-awful, "paranormal romance" cover art. This book is not even VAGUELY romantic...though it certainly is paranormal. Cait Kiernan is one of my favourite authors, and this is beyond any shadow of a doubt her best book since Threshold, the first of her longer works I'd ever read. The Red Tree is a swirling, delerious, and very troubling descent into the same realm of New England horror first mapped out by Hawthorne and H. P. Lovecraft--but, unlike their works, this one has no t...more

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Aug 10, 2009 Heather rated it 5 of 5 stars

This latest and much anticipated book by Caitlin R. Kiernan is some of her best work yet. The Red Tree is presented as a journal written by the author Sarah Crowe after she rents a remote farm house, in order to have solitude to write, and discovers an old typewriter and an unfinished manuscript by the house's previous tenant; Charles L. Harvey. Mr. Harvey was putting together something of a coherent history of a huge red oak tree on the property surrounding the farm house. The history of the tr...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Word-Weary Reviews rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I finished The Red Tree, I went back to reread the faux editor’s preface, hoping to tease out the contradictions and outright lies. Of course, there was nothing there. I found no great revelation that hadn’t been clear from the start, which shouldn’t be surprising. The Red Tree isn’t a novel that wants to be simple or tidy.

I came across the novel on a list of top lesbian novels. I avoided reading it, despite the rave reviews, because between the cover and the horror element, it just didn’t...more When I finished The Red Tree, I went back to reread the faux editor’s preface, hoping to tease out the contradictions and outright lies. Of course, there was nothing there. I found no great revelation that hadn’t been clear from the start, which shouldn’t be surprising. The Red Tree isn’t a novel that wants to be simple or tidy.

I came across the novel on a list of top lesbian novels. I avoided reading it, despite the rave reviews, because between the cover and the horror element, it just didn’t sound like my sort of novel. To be clear, I’m a novice to horror. I’ve read nothing in the genre besides the scraps of Poe that no American high school student can escape. The supernatural tends to squick me. But promises of good writing are enough to overcome my strongest of biases, and I purchased the book. Needless to say, I’m glad I did.

To start at the start, yes, this is a lesbian novel. Of course, that bears explaining because there are two types of lesbian novels. The first type, which is by far the more abundant, are novels about lesbian identity. They’re Bildungsroman, all of them, regardless of how old the protagonists are. One woman meets another, falls in love against her best instincts, and must confront how very queer she is. There’s a value in these stories, to be sure, especially in the YA market; we’ve all lived them, these testimonies, and they’re vital to the next generations. But they do get dreadfully dull. And there’s so little lesbian literature for the rest of us, who have grown into our own skin. Sometimes I just want to read a normal, adult novel starring fully self-actualized lesbians. Thank god, or Kiernan, as the case may be, The Red Tree is such a novel.

Meaning, of course, that though The Red Tree is a lesbian novel, it’s also more than a lesbian novel—a great deal more.

Sarah Crowe is a writer who hates writing. A lifelong Southerner, she moves to Rhode Island to escape her past, her deadline, herself. She lives alone in an old house. While digging through the basement, she finds a manuscript belonging to the previous tenant, who committed suicide because of the haunting red tree on the property. This manuscript and this tree become Sarah’s obsession as well. Sarah is a highly flawed character. The novel is in first person, in the form of a diary. She might not be the most likable character, but it’s difficult to remain untouched by the loss of her sanity.

Sarah Crowe remarks early on that digression is her superpower. Well, digression is certainly Kiernan’s superpower. The stream-of-consciousness prose is simply dreamy. It’s littered with allusions, digressions, profanities, inanities, and high self-deprecation. It’s smart and harsh and raw, just as befits the protagonist. It’s irreverent and unreliable and utterly captivating. It’s the sort of narrative you can fall into. It’s the sort of writing I read to find.

The novel is atmospheric, slow-brooding, and episodic; it reads like a dream, and not just because of the frequent dream sequences Sarah records in her makeshift journal. The tale is surreal, and just a little absurd, but all the more compelling for it. Rather, it’s a dream within a dream within a dream. The mystery is multi-layered, like Russian nesting dolls. There’s this parodic repetition at work, from Kiernan to Crowe to Harvey to firsthand folklore—writers writing about writers writing about writers. Kiernan draws from Poe, Thoreau, and Lewis Carroll to weave a complex narrative of psychological horror. It’s the tale of Sarah Crowe’s unraveling, as her unshakable guilt over the death of her ex-lover becomes the obsession with the wicked red oak tree. But, of course, as with any great novel, it also manages to be about something else, in this case art and writing, a subtle meta commentary on the artistic mind, process, and temperament.

There is no neat ending, no simple answer. There’s nothing neat or simple about this novel and expecting the ending to be anything less than complex would be unfair. It’s a post-modern solution, really—rather, a solution that isn’t. The line between what’s real and what Sarah makes up, consciously or unconsciously, blurs the farther you read. Everything must be doubted.

It’s brilliant. That’s what this review has been building toward, so I may as well say it. Caitlin R. Kiernan’s The Red Tree is brilliant. It really is the sort of book I read to find. Cerebral and complicated with sublime, dreamlike prose and a tortuously ambiguous ending—not to mention lesbians. It’s everything I could possibly want in a book.

Full review: http://wordwearyreviews.wordpress.com...(less)

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Jul 22, 2011 Luis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The main character is an author, and most of the story is told through her journal, which is more wordy and "writery" than any real journal. She recounts her stay in a rented house far from town and the allure of an ancient oak growing near the property which sometimes seems near and other times impossible to get to. While in the house she finds a manuscript written by a former (deceased) tenant who was writing about about the supernatural occurrences tied to The Red Tree. Parts of this manuscri...more

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Jan 20, 2011 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This amazing, creepy, densely atmospheric book works on so many levels for me. I love books that are about reading and writing, and whether either of those activities is dangerous or imparts responsibility. The more Sarah writes in her journal, the worse her situation gets, and she (and the reader) can't help wondering if one is feeding the other (but in what way? and in which direction?). The book is an ouroborous, endlessly looping back on itself with repeating images: the woman writer, the wo...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Naty rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-fantasy, urban-fantasy

The self-loathing misery the narrator wallows in was difficult to swallow at times. In terms of story, i wished more strange things had happened rather than suggested or dreamed of. I don't mind the vague ending, but more meat in the middle would've been nice. Also a little more digging into Harvey's life and death. As it stands I'm trying to resolve the imagery I was given and can only conclude that some great ancient evil has always lived in the Red Tree and for each inhabitant of the property...more

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Oct 27, 2009 Angie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: couldn-t-put-down, different, horror, i-recommend, favorites

A haunting, poetic piece of work that is meant to provoke, frighten, and disturb, The Red Tree deserves much more attention than it will probably get. The cover (which the author didn't like) appears to make it easy to categorize--paranormal romance.

Instead, the work is a highly poetic description of a descent into madness provoked, in part, by her narrator's sudden move from Atlanta to an old farmhouse in Rhode Island. But that's just my interpretation. It could be that the author meant for us...more

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