In Durleston Wood

Hey Paul,

Wow, thanks ever so much for that review! That was amazing. You make me want to rush out and buy it! You picked up on things in there I’d sort of imagined I was getting at but wasn’t sure if anyone else would. I’d wondered at some point in the story about making it so that Lillian could be just as much an imagined character as a real one, but I ended up leaving it vague. Great that you picked up on that anyway. Very much appreciated. It’s odd, when you’re writing something… (more)

Hey Paul,

Wow, thanks ever so much for that review! That was amazing. You make me want to rush out and buy it! You picked up on things in there I’d sort of imagined I was getting at but wasn’t sure if anyone else would. I’d wondered at some point in the story about making it so that Lillian could be just as much an imagined character as a real one, but I ended up leaving it vague. Great that you picked up on that anyway. Very much appreciated. It’s odd, when you’re writing something like that – you know what it means to you, but never quite how it will chime with a reader. You can only hope it will be in a way that’s positive and thought provoking. From what you’ve written I seem to have managed that. Very gratifying. Thank you very much.

I’m reading your story “in the future” at the moment, and will comment on Feedbooks when I’ve finished. So far so good – really interesting characters. I think I was lucky on Feedbooks – I got in early with the Man Who, which has kept it sort of in the top twenty "all time" for a while, and the way Feedbooks link to other works means readers can find my other stuff as well.

It’s like spread-betting – splatter as many of your works out there as you can, from shorts to full length novels, and the download count mounts up.

Do keep it up.

Regards

Michael

It doesn’t seem to be the “done thing” on feedbooks to post reviews of any length, but at the risk of committing some appalling breach of site etiquette, here’s my review of this very impressive novel:

Following the break-up of his marriage, Richard Hunter returns from the US to the English village of Durleston, where he grew up. He finds work as a teacher at the local primary school, although his heart doesn’t really seem to be in it – the main thing that seems to keep him going is… (more)

It doesn’t seem to be the “done thing” on feedbooks to post reviews of any length, but at the risk of committing some appalling breach of site etiquette, here’s my review of this very impressive novel:

Following the break-up of his marriage, Richard Hunter returns from the US to the English village of Durleston, where he grew up. He finds work as a teacher at the local primary school, although his heart doesn’t really seem to be in it – the main thing that seems to keep him going is his infatuation with the school’s aloof and career-focussed headmistress, Davinia. Estranged from his family, he has little contact with anyone outside of work. Recurrent anxiety attacks cause him seek out the isolation of Durleston Wood, where he takes long walks, reminiscing about his childhood and generally pondering how he has reached middle age with so little to show for it.

It is on these walks that he becomes aware of a woman who appears to be kept a prisoner in a remote cottage in the wood by a local criminal. Should he help her escape? But then again, does she really need his help? After all, she is not physically imprisoned there – it is more that she seems to consider herself unable to leave. I won’t reveal much more about the plot, except to say that it revolves around Richard’s relationships with the apparently submissive woman in the wood and the apparently unattainable Davinia – and their relationships with violent, abusive men.

Although he may sound like a hopeless case, Richard proves to be an engaging and sympathetic narrator, with a keen observational sense and a high degree of self-awareness. This prevents him from wallowing in self-pity and allows him to see the occasionally humorous side of his own predicament. Meanwhile, Durleston Wood itself is portrayed atmospherically and the novel has a general undercurrent of violence/threat combined with sexual tension, which reminded me of some of Ian McEwan’s work.

And then there is the question of how much of what we are reading is actually real. After all, here we have a central character who wanders around Durleston Wood, sometimes holding imaginary conversations with previous girlfriends from long ago - so who’s to say that certain parts of the novel presented as “reality” aren’t in fact an elaborate fantasy on his part? Come to that, who’s to say that the entire novel isn’t essentially a symbolic representation of competing impulses battling it out in Richard’s head ? For me, this ambiguity made “In Durleston Wood” all the more complex and intriguing. But you can just as easily take it at face value and read it as a more straightforward mystery/romance.

As for what it’s about, I think it’s concerned with how we’re peculiarly adept at constructing psychological prisons – sometimes for ourselves, sometimes for others – either because we like the security of them or we like the feeling of power it gives us over others. It’s also about the difference between desire and love – Richard in particular is acutely aware of how easy it is to feel the former and how difficult, even frightening, it can be to transform it into the latter. But that’s just what I took away from it. Why not read it for yourself and see what you think.