Cold Boy's Wood

by Carol Birch

Did you hear? Big landslip over by Ercol. Last night. The road into Gully's closed off. They found a body. Got police tape. All that stuff. They only do that for murder, don't they? Murder!

A body has been uncovered in a mudslide just outside the village of Andwiston. In the pub they talk of murder, but Dan – sometime mechanic, constant drunk – is finding it hard to sift through his jumbled memories. Watching him from the dark is Lorna, a lost soul living in the woods, haunted by ghosts and a vision from her childhood: a cold boy standing alone in Gallinger's field.

Fusing the ghost story with sharp, psychological insight, this brilliant, timely novel about loneliness, buried secrets and the havoc they play on the mind, cements Carol Birch as one of our most important literary writers.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2021

About the author

Carol Birch is the author of eleven previous novels, including Turn Again Home, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and Jamrach’s Menagerie, which was a Man Booker Prize finalist and long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the London Book Award.

Reviews

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was strange and creepy throughout.I personally loved Carol Birch's writing style which the 'stream of consciousness' was obviously meant to mislead and distract. I thought both Lorna and Dan were wonderful protagonists but Dan's story got lost for Lorna's which, in someways was fine, but I also kinda wanted closure for him too.... Throughout, we are never sure which ghosts are really there and which are within Lorna and that is such an interesting read! The mystery of this book is all based in the past and that in itself is insidious, dark and extremely sad. Harriet, Lorna's daughter, never truly forgives her mother for what happened and boy, that one hits home. Harriet reminds me of my sister and the way she reacts to my own mother's poor health and so I think Carol Birch did a wonderful job showing how trauma has ripple effects for everyone not just the person who has been through it.
To close, if you're expecting fireworks and fights, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for a book 100% vibes then this is what you should read. ALWAYS LOOK UP TRIGGER WARNINGS! This book is full of them! Stay safe <3

[Mr Pink Ink]

Thank you to Jonathan Ball Publishers for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Classified as a literary thriller, Cold Boys' Wood by Carol Birch is rather lacking in thrill. I DNFd this almost halfway through because, for one hundred and fifty-nine pages, we are just listening to the banter between homeless-by-choice Lorna and always-drunk-widower Dan, which in itself was slightly entertaining but I wasn't here for that...

If you wish to hear all my thoughts on this book (and some others), please do check out this video on my channel.

[19EnayatollahS · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a really interesting melodic, slow, lonely atmosphere. The pace could sometimes be challenging, so I would recommend this to ages 15/16+, but I found it relatively easy to get inside the minds of Dan and Lorna trying to decipher reality. However, since they, the narrators, didn’t fully know what was going on, it was hard to know what to trust as part of the actual storyline. This disorientation was challenging at times, but it made for an interesting read. I felt goosebumps on multiple occasions. I definitely enjoyed reading this.

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, but incredibly depressing book about two people on the margins of society. It is so bleak that I skim read the second half to get it over with.

[BookAddict · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just jumped around too.much for me, I could have cared less about the characters and almost stopped reading it a quarter way through but kept up with it hoping I'd like it. This just wasn't for me.

[Hannah O'Donnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

TW: Homelessness, Substance Abuse (alcohol), PTSD/Mental Illness, Neglect/Trauma, Suicide, Murder/Violence.

"Photographs, ancient yellowing documents that hadn't been important for decades. Just chuck the lot. When did he ever look at those pictures anyway? What did they mean? People made much out of these things. What's the point when things are gone?"


Cold Boy's Wood was the first pick for the Lunar Book Club; a book club hosted on Discord and here at Waypoint for those who follow Hannah (@LadetteM) on Youtube. Those on Discord are offered four vague genre prompts and then we pick a new release as a surprise for our readers to enjoy. Each month there are different prompts, different books, and a cute little matching bookmark to go with it.

The prompt chosen for February was 'Horror', and we spotted this book under the horror genre description on our distributor's website and were immediately intrigued. Carol Birch has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and this story promised ghostly phantoms, murder and cover-ups, dark and sinister woods - all things we love in a classic horror novel.

This is not what we got. So I'll start with our general disappointments with this novel, and save the good stuff until last - because there are a lot of positive things to say about this book. Firstly, this book feels like a cruel missell of what the content is actually going to be. Yes, there is a ghost - kind of. In the opening chapter, we meet young Lorna, who believes she saw a ghost coming out of the woods, which led to her going onto medication for schizophrenia as a child. Does this ghost ever make another reappearance? No. We get odd moments of sinister sounds and shapes, all while walking on a knife-edge of 'is this in her head, or is there something in the woods?' Is there murder and a cover-up? Yes. Does it have anything to do with the body mentioned in the blurb? No. In fact, the blurb'd body is barely more than a source of gossip for the villagers living next to the woods.

So if Cold Boy's Wood isn't any of the things it promised to be, what is it? I would describe it as a psychological character study of two very broken individuals trying to suppress their traumas, inexplicably drawn to one another during the wintry season. With a truncated writing style which tempts tension, feels both eerily familiar and desperately sinister.

This book is fully literary fiction. All of the conflict exists internally, with few moments of action and a lot of contemplation about how Lorna and Dan arrived in the situation they're currently in. Dan is living in his mother's old house, the house she died in, the house he never truly escaped. Surrounded by feral cats, nosey neighbours, and the wood at the back of his garden, Dan is alone. And that's how he likes it. Lorna is living rough, she's off her meds and she's grateful. The woods are a faerie realm for her, a place she can escape her past, which becomes the secondary narrative. What happened to Lorna? What did Terry, her ex-husband, do? Where is he now?

As I said, I do have positive things to say about this novel. Whilst the mystery wasn't the one I expected, I did enjoy it. Seeing the decline of Lorna was heartbreaking and sinister, with the radical people her husband surrounded himself with bleeding their toxicity into him step by step. It's hard not to sympathise with Lorna, who didn't ask for any of this, and readers may find her descent triggering. I really enjoyed the writing style. What, superficially, might seem like a jumbled mess of thoughts, read like a well crafted and sinister exploration of the people left behind by the cruel actions of others. Lorna and Dan are not good people, but they're not bad people either.

This book is hard to recommend specifically, as I don't have any 1-2-1 comparisons I can make off the cuff. But if you liked the eerie vibes of Catherine House, mixed with the traumatic humanity of literary authors such as Anna Ellory or Bernadine Evaristo - then this is a book you should pick up. If you're expecting a book where lots of things happen, jump scares galore, then this isn't it - but we have just the blog for you! Check it out here.

[Φερειπείν · Rating 2 out of 5]

Η αφήγηση εκτυλίσσεται αποσπασματικά, με θραύσματα μνήμης και υπαινιγμούς που συχνά θολώνουν αντί να διαυγάζουν το τοπίο· η πληροφορία δεν προσφέρεται, αλλά διαρρέει, αφήνοντας τον αναγνώστη σε μια διαρκή αβεβαιότητα.

Η τεχνική αυτή, αν και φιλοδοξεί να μιμηθεί τη λειτουργία του τραυματικού ασυνειδήτου, καταλήγει ενίοτε περισσότερο συγκεχυμένη παρά ουσιαστικά πολυσημική, επιβραδύνοντας τον ρυθμό και δημιουργώντας μια αίσθηση αφηγηματικής στασιμότητας.

Το υπερφυσικό στοιχείο, το «κρύο αγόρι», η σκιά του δάσους, το άλυτο πτώμα, λειτουργεί λιγότερο ως πηγή τρόμου και περισσότερο ως ατμοσφαιρικό πέπλο, που, αντί να πυκνώνει την ένταση, συχνά καταλήγει να την αμβλύνει. Έτσι, η δημιουργία της Birch μοιάζει ιδιόμορφη αλλά και κάπως άτονη, περισσότερο στοχαστική παρά δραματική, περισσότερο περίεργη παρά συναρπαστική.

Οι χαρακτήρες, μακριά από το να είναι άμεσα συμπαθείς, κινούνται στη ζώνη του ελλειμματικού και του ραγισμένου. Η Λόρνα βυθισμένη στις φαντασματικές προβολές της, ο Νταν εγκλωβισμένος στη λήθη και την ενοχή. Κι όμως, μέσα σε αυτή τη συναισθηματική ερημία, η μεταξύ τους σχέση αποκτά μια παράδοξη τρυφερότητα, όχι ως ρομαντική λύτρωση, αλλά ως συμμαχία δύο τραυματισμένων υπάρξεων που αναγνωρίζουν η μία τη ρωγμή της άλλης.

Η σύνδεσή τους δεν εξαγνίζει, απλώς απαλύνει· δεν θεραπεύει, απλώς επιτρέπει την επιβίωση. Σε μια σχεδόν ψυχαναλυτική ανάγνωση, το φάντασμα δεν εξορκίζεται, αλλά συνυπάρχει μαζί τους και αυτή η χαμηλόφωνη αποδοχή, όσο λιτή κι αν είναι, αποτελεί τη μοναδική, εύθραυστη μορφή κάθαρσης που το μυθιστόρημα προσφέρει.

The narrative unfolds in fragments, through shards of memory and oblique hints that more often obscure than clarify the landscape; information is not offered so much as it seeps through, leaving the reader in a state of sustained uncertainty.

This technique, though it aspires to imitate the workings of the traumatic unconscious, at times proves more muddled than meaningfully polysemous, slowing the pace and producing a sense of narrative stasis rather than depth. The supernatural element, the “cold boy”, the shadow in the forest, the unresolved corpse, functions less as a source of terror and more as an atmospheric veil which, instead of intensifying tension, frequently diffuses it. Thus Birch’s creation feels distinctive yet somewhat muted, more contemplative than dramatic, more curious than compelling.

The characters, far from being immediately sympathetic, inhabit a realm of fracture and deficiency. Lorna is submerged in her ghostly projections; Dan is trapped in forgetfulness and guilt. And yet, within this emotional desolation, their relationship acquires an unexpected tenderness, not as a form of romantic redemption but as an alliance between two wounded beings who recognise the crack in one another.

Their connection does not purify, merely soothes; it does not heal, merely enables survival. From an almost psychoanalytic perspective, the ghost is not exorcised but allowed to coexist with them, and this quiet acceptance, spare as it is, constitutes the only fragile form of catharsis the novel ultimately offers.

[Ailema · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a sad book!

This exploration of loneliness and the relationship between two misfits - an unlikeable drunk and a vagrant woman - is masterful at developing human characters, but falls wide of the mark when it comes to plot and pace.

There's little to charm readers in the first half, with the prose veering between grumpy Dan and past and present Lorna, and I strongly considered putting it down.

It eventually gathers some steam towards the end, as we hear the climax of Lorna's personal story. There's a sense of vindication: Lorna, the mother unfairly maligned by her daughter, strikes up a connection with Dan, who has blamed his own now-deceased mother.

But there are loose ends, too. The book is so named because in the first scene, Lorna believes she sees a ghost of a small boy, freezing in the woods. But does the boy return, like the gun in the first scene that, if it exists, must go off in the fourth? He does not.

Likewise, little is made of the body that is discovered in a mudslide at the beginning of the book, and the person is never conclusively identified. It is implied that it could be Maurice, the radical intellectual mentor-cum-nemesis of Lorna's ex, Johnny. We know that Madeleine suspects a man she once gave a lift to, with blood on his face, could have been involved. It is later revealed that this man was Johnny, who had just fought with Maurice on the hillside and made his way from there to Lorna's cottage without ever learning whether Maurice left safely. Perhaps the body is a symbol of the abandoned, designed to illustrate that nobody likes the idea of dying alone and forgotten, but few do much for the marginal and vulnerable while they're still alive.

When we finally learn that Lorna killed Johnny for sabotaging her daughter's boyfriend's car, no attempt is made to explain why nobody came looking for him.

Finally, it is unclear what the age gap is between Lorna and Dan, information which could contribute to understanding the character of their relationship.

I would read other books by this writer, because her prose is powerful, but this one fell wide of the mark.

[Jennifer Li · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is classified as a literary thriller, and I can see why. The pace is slow and at times challenging, enabling the reader to reflect on the words on the page and to try to understand the main characters.

The prose is really interesting in this book - a lot of short sentences, even one word sentences, or a rambling of different adjectives strung together. I felt like I was in the minds of Dan and Lorna trying to decipher reality from past memories as well as when the mind plays tricks on you and you hear or see things that aren’t there.

A haunting, lonely and melodic atmosphere envelopes this story. With the story switching frequently from present to past, it almost feels disorienting and I can’t fully trust the narrative told by the unreliable protagonists. I immediately felt goosebumps after reading the initial chapters and felt chilled as to what I would read next, or hear/see through Dan/Lorna’s minds.

A deep and thought provoking read, which delves into the human psyche of individuals dealing with past trauma and long forgotten secrets.

[Matilda B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book interesting for probably reasons the author didn’t intend.

The book is told from the perspective of two unreliable narrators, an old crazy lady who leaves her council home to live in the woods and an old drunk man who lives in a home overrun by cats.

It is an interesting premise, don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the fact that you gradually have to piece together parts of the story, and you question whether the narrator is telling the whole truth. However, it comes across as quite disjointed in parts, some of it due to the structure of the book where it is unclear which voice is speaking. It could have done with clearer chapters only in one voice (sometimes both characters narrate in one chapter).

Then there’s the plot… Having finished the story, I remain completely baffled as to what I read.

At the start of the book there is a flashback to a memory of the female narrator seeing a ghost in the form of a young boy, which I took to be the “Cold Boy” - i.e. the title of the book, and the mystery which was to be resolved. However, this plot line seems to be completely disregarded and you never seem to find out what happened to the boy. There is a body dredged up from a ditch that we never find out the identity of and through a few meanders into sometimes irrelevant backstories, the book ends with a totally different plot line of the old lady having murdered her partner and leaving his body in a different ditch which she then decides dig up and bury in the old cat man’s garden. As you do?

The end of the book was conflictingly cute, where both narrators determined the other was a bit weird, and they hold hands, accepting the other’s weirdness. It was a nice ending, but a very strange ride to get there!

Summary: It was a bizarre read. But amusing for how bizarre it was if nothing else!

[Hullabaloo22 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of a strange and unlikely friendship

This is the sort of book that you'll either love it hate. For the first couple of chapters I wasn't sure, but the characters of both Lorna and Dan were so well developed I had to know what happened to them.
This is a totally character-driven story, so if you are wanting lots of action this won't be for you.

[Johanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is impeccable. For the longest time I kept reading just because of the writing but in the end I am glad I stuck it out. How little it can take to feel like your heart is soaring when it has been neglected for half a lifetime.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[katerina · Rating 1 out of 5]

never been more confused in my life and i do math methods