review written by Trex
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister is part Gothic horror and part Magical Realism. The Haddesley family has always lived in their crumbling West Virginia mansion, on the edge of their cranberry bog. The bog gives them everything they need. It even provides a wife for each generation’s patriarch: a woman made from the bog is magically provided for the new patriarch when the old patriarch’s body has been returned to the bog. It’s a covenant kept for generations.
The book opens with Wenna Haddesley returning home to help with the ritual of their father dying. Wenna has been estranged from her father and siblings for years and plans on leaving West Virginia again as soon as possible. Plans change as she sees the sorry state her family has been living in and as old family drama and dynamics suck her back in like the peat bog itself.
This book reminded me of a lot of other stories but felt original nonetheless. There are certainly elements of “The Fall of the House of Usher” with part-mad siblings rattling around decrepit rooms. The isolation of the Haddesleys and their sense of being chained to a legacy they never chose made me think of 100 Years of Solitude. The Haddesleys live in the disgraced present circumstances of their glorious family who previously enjoyed wealth and abundance. Or at least, this is what they were always told. The magical realism of the story is all in the bog – how they interact with it and vice versa is more an expression of how the siblings evolve as characters and less about the magic itself.
The Bog Wife was less horrifying or scary and more quietly disturbing. Whereas I thought I’d feel the most connected to Wenna, Charlie ultimately became the character I found myself hoping for. The creeping decay and macabre events ultimately tell a really poignant story about siblings living in the ruins of their own lives. Witnessing the choices they make with the sorry tools life provided them is what kept me reading.
Darker Books 