Synopsis
PART OF THE NORTHERN WEIRD PROJECT
Richard’s sister Julie returns home from a mysterious wellness facility in remote Cumbria in 1994. He’s convinced that this place was a cult and was the cause of his sister’s eventual suicide. Finally, after years as an unaccomplished academic, he decides to investigate the disturbing accusations against the Hartman Retreat Centre. Then he meets Lucy, a young woman whose story is eerily similar to his sister’s decades before. Richard is determined to unearth what’s really been happening at the Hartman Retreat Centre but more importantly, who is Charles Hartman, the celebrated healer who casts a powerful hold over all who come to the retreat. Told through letters, interviews and found texts, lovers of Gemma Fairlcough’s Bear Season will be swept up in a sinister world of wellness gurus and mystery.
Review
There’s something insidious about wellness culture. Particularly in our modern age, where the internet is stuffed with drinks and powders that will make you lose weight or gain muscle, or Instagram pages dedicating to making YOU, yes you, you loser, find a new balance in your life through following these simple steps (and maybe also paying a shit load of money for a pyramid scheme course). And whilst there are of course plenty of wellness products, coaches, courses and retreats that are genuinely set up to help people, it speaks volumes that the horror genre has had its far share of stories centred around wellness.
Brian McAuley’s Breathe In, Bleed Out is a Scream-style slasher by way of yoga classes; Mona Awad’s Rouge is a grief-horror that tackles mother-daughter relationships in the modern beauty & wellness spa industry; Eliza Clark’s She’s Always Hungry has a few shorts in there that deal with beauty products having monstrous effects. And now, Gemma Fairclough pens a paranoia inducing epistolary romp through the seduced North West of England countryside, and encounters a tale of folkloric mystery, in the latest novella from Wild Hunt books Northern Weird project, The Retreat.
Told through a collection of blog posts, interview transcripts, news article snippets, and letters, The Retreat pieces together the investigation of Richard, an avid rambler, into an exclusive, tucked away wellness retreat that may have been responsible for his sisters death over 30 years previous. We are taken on a journey that peels back its layer through suggestion and interpretation, more so than distinct and obvious fact. And by that I mean that The Retreat is a story that presents an eclectic mixture of tidbits that tell a portion of a story, but it becomes very much about what you think is real, what is fake, what is paranoid delusion, fact & fantasy. What this does is creates an intriguing story of suspense, as we discover a series of unsettling events that all link back to the Hartman Retreat, the name of the house and wellness centre that this story pivots upon. It always feels like a sinister presence, even in seemingly unrelated blog posts from Richard’s own popular walking blog.
Piecing together these moments of “evidence” felt to me – and this may be an odd comparison – to Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Each time you read another portion of this story, whether it be a transcript of Richard’s interview with someone who had previously visited the centre, or a newspaper clipping from the time of his sisters death, each one uncovers something new and has the potential to recontextualise what’s come before. My partner and I read this one together, and we found that we both had different ideas of what was actually going on come the end of the novella, which made for some genuinely interesting discussions (normally we just sit in silence and sometimes fart in one another’s direction).
Not only this, it’s a story that feels very set in the natural beauty of the northern countryside. Cumbria is a stunning part of the UK, and the moments where we focus on this setting, you can tell that Fairclough has a lot of love for this place. It explores how this insidious centre becomes a scar on this area of natural beauty, and how the lands own folklore myth bleeds its way into the way that the centre treats its “guests”.
The Retreat is a compelling and riveting read, one that intrigues you with its mystery, and its personal connections to those involved in the seeming mistreatings of the Hartman Centre. In its presentation, it leaves you with a sense of unquiet and keeps you thinking long after the final lines is read. I’d highly recommend this if you’re looking for something that want to read with a group of people, because the discussions you’ll have the end will be wildly different, and the only adds to the novellas mystique!
With thanks to Wild Hunt Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
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