Making of a Witch, the Poetic Way - Reviewing Laird Hunt's "In The House In the Dark of the Woods"

Until recently, I hadn’t managed to finish Laird Hunt’s dark fairy tale In the House in the Dark of the Woods, although I always meant to and always kept on recommending it. Now that I have finally crossed that title from my TBR list and although I’m left with lots and lots of question marks in my mind, I feel really satisfied finally having accomplished it.

A woman living in Puritan/Colonial North America goes into the woods to collect berries, gets lost, finds a little hut where another woman lives and ends up entangled in a story full of devils, witches, trauma and misogyny, but also hope. What sounds like a traditional horror novel on a traditional trope, is in fact a much more complex look at a society’s fear and the resulting repression of women. 

The titular house in the woods is in fact a sort of station where women who fell out of society's favor in various ways, either because they actively did something that wasn't expected of women or because out of sheer bad luck, end up going to. In and around this house always live three women; Eliza, Goody and Granny Something. That is, these three roles exist in this house and whether they are three versions of the same woman who comes to live in the house, or different aspects of witchdom, or even three completely different people is left to your imagination. It is certain though that each time when one woman's time in the hut is over, it is a new "outlawed" woman who can slip into these roles and live a solitary and scary, but independent life of a witch in the house in the woods. Although all women in this book did something "bad", there was also a huge portion of social critique of the misogyny of a puritan society, as they all had so many trauma which can help explain and even justify why they did what they did – an abusive husband, being sexualized as children, having children out of the wedlock were enough reason for them to be expelled of the Puritan society. The house can be understood both as a punishment for women who negatively stand out of society or as a training place to learn how to become a witch.

This kind of playfulness, these blurred lines, are extended to pretty much all corners of this book and it is a reader that has the necessary mental flexibility and an equally openness for a story with no edges who will thoroughly cherish this poetically written book, and someone who expects more of a clear-cut horror story unfortunately won't much. I don't mean to imply that I belong to the lucky readers in the first category, though. Even though I really enjoyed the idea of such a wide field of possible interpretations offered to me, I still have the feeling there’s underlying meanings in places I haven't even discovered yet and I’m sure I missed many things. But ultimately, I like that kind of mystery.

Although the book starts in a very simple, folkloric and fairy tale kind of way, -a fact that I rather disliked, as the main character and her inner life seemed too plain and naive- about a quarter in things start getting a little more complex. Nothing is as it seems anymore and with each step in the woman's journey, Eliza, Prudence, whatever her name is, we slowly discover the vicious cycle of domestic, religious, social violence she's trapped in. So intense in her case that it's almost natural that a person feels the need to break out of that much pressure and do something to set herself free, become a witch or not.

I still have many questions about this story - I loved the allegories, the playfulness, the open-endedness, the bitterness it has to offer but I can't claim to have understood it completely. Looking at other reviews it is a hit or miss kind of book, you either love or hate it. I'm sure of one thing though, it has left an impression on me and will stay with me for some time to come.