The Hazel Wood

Noticing Karen has scheduled a review of Melissa Albert's THE HAZEL WOOD for next week, I decided to post my review of it now (adapted from one first published in my May 2018 newsletter). Not having read hers yet, of course, I look forward to her reaction to the book.

In an interview around the time of the novel's publication, Albert reveals that it was inspired not only by the concept of a multiverse and motifs from classic fairy tales but also noir detective fiction:

Her Own Spin on the Traditional Fairy Tale

THE HAZEL WOOD is a mind-blowing entry in my favorite fantasy subgenre, portal fantasy. Seventeen-year-old Alice’s grandmother, Althea Proserpine, whom she has never met, wrote one collection of fairy tales that became a cult classic, then withdrew from the world to her estate, the Hazel Wood (named after a line in a poem by Yeats). Ella, Alice’s mother, never talks about Althea or the father of whom Alice knows nothing. Ella and Alice have kept constantly on the move, fleeing the bad luck that seems to plague them and everyone around them. Althea's book, TALES FROM THE HINTERLAND, is almost impossible to find; Alice got a brief glimpse of a copy before her mother took it from her. At the age of six, Alice was temporarily abducted by a stranger who claimed to come from the her grandmother. The article linked above refers to "the imperfect mother-daughter dynamic between Alice and Ella" the author has created. Albert herself asserts "families free of dysfunction don’t exist." After receiving word of Althea’s death, Ella marries a prosperous man with a teenage daughter. When the novel begins, Alice is attending an exclusive school. She doesn't get along with her stepsister and stepfather, but she has a part-time job and even a couple of sort-of friends (or at least friendly acquaintances).

With the surname Proserpine, alluding to the mythical goddess unwillingly swept away into the realm of Hades, Alice is clearly not destined for an ordinary, mundane existence. Albert acknowledges that Alice isn't meant to be instantly likable. The article describes her as "an intense and often angry young woman." In general, I avoid spending entire full-length books with unlikable protagonists. In Alice's case, however, even though she's prickly, abrasive, and prone to occasional outbursts of rage, I nevertheless sympathized with her plight and her quest.

After Alice begins to glimpse strange people who might have a connection to Althea and the fictional Hinterland, Ella and her husband and stepdaughter vanish. When father and daughter reappear within a few days, refusing to discuss what happened to them, he throws Alice out of the house. She resolves to track down her missing mother. To do that, she feels she must find her grandmother’s home, the Hazel Wood, but the only clues to its location are in an old magazine article about Althea. Alice has to turn for help to her classmate Ellery Finch, an obsessive fan of TALES FROM THE HINTERLAND, which he actually read multiple times before having his copy stolen. On their road trip, Alice and Ellery become friends or perhaps something more, while randomly encountering people who seem to step out of the pages of Althea’s fairy tales. Ellery tells Alice a bit about the stories, their tone and contents a blend of numinous and creepy. After discovering Ellery’s ulterior motive for coming with her, in shocking scene of betrayal and loss, Alice does find Hazel Wood. From there, as we'd expect, she makes her way into the Hinterland. She also learns the truth about her own past.

The magical place she discovers beyond the portal isn't a country of heroism and ultimate joy like (for instance) Narnia. The Hinterland is overshadowed by the alien, perilous aspects of the faerie world as portrayed in authentic folklore. The treatment of the familiar trope that time passes differently between that world and ours, here shown as not only disorienting but downright horrifying, particularly impressed me.

In addition to a sequel, NIGHT COUNTRY (which begins with Alice trying to lead a safe, nonmagical life in New York -- in vain, naturally), Melissa Albert later meta-fictionally published TALES FROM THE HINTERLAND itself. The stories are enthralling but dark and bloody, typically from female viewpoints, very seldom with anything like a happy ending. Examples: Sisters locked up by their stepmother must create a door of blood to escape. The moon's granddaughter seeks her mother (one of the few sort-of happy conclusions). Maidens become betrothed to monsters or mysterious entities (not gentle beast-princes under curses). Would-be mothers resort to desperate measures to have children, with horrible results. Young women attempt to make bargains with Death. They're all narrated in a hypnotically enchanting prose style.

Margaret L. Carter

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