Synopsis
THIS PLACE HATES YOU…
Five high school friends, bonded by an oath to protect each other no matter what.
On a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere
One friend walks up – but never comes back down.
Now twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared, and the friends return to find the lost boy – and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods…
Review
The Staircase In The Woods, by thicc-book writer Chuck Wendig, is, for sake of clarity, a damn fine story. It is, also, a hard book to get too far into the trees about without giving away its most surprising element and spoiling the central mystery – what is at the top of the stairs?
But what is this book about? The Staircase In The Woods follows a group of teenage friends as they go camping in the woods, where they discover a staircase that seemingly leads to nowhere. One of them climbs the stairs and then disappears into thin air. Twenty years later, the remaining friends meet up to find out what happened to their friend – and finally discover what lies beyond the staircase.
The first thing that hit me in this book was the strength of the character work. Oh wow are these people just so REAL! I felt all their pains, their traumas, their tics, their demons, but I also felt their connections, that strength of bond that only forms in the years of change at high-school or in the trenches of teenager-hood. And yet twenty years of connection, with such a horrible, pivotal, life-changing event binding them forever together, you can feel the strain and tension of this friendship in every word. Each one of this group of friends – particularly the four that we follow in adulthood – felt believable in their arcs and personalities. We switch between two POVs; Owen, the nervous, introverted friend who finds that he hasn’t done much with himself in his adult life, and Lore, famous video game designer and self-proclaimed independent lone wolf type. Both Owen & Lore are rich in depth and compelling people to live inside, and the dynamic between these two is both sweet, heartfelt and grin-inducing, whilst also fraught with so many unaired grievances and pieces of information that cause a lot of conflict within and without. We watch these adults in flashbacks throughout the first 100 or so pages and we get to build a picture of them as teens, how they came to be part of this group of close-knit besties that will form a protective pact that transcends all of them. It’s some of the best kid friendship dynamics I’ve read since I first finished IT seven years ago.
Now, I need to skirt around the BIG part of this book, and that’s the central mystery of what is up the stairs. So, let me say this, Staircase In The Woods explores liminality in various forms, but it also explores the corridors and hallways of our own minds, the mental scars and traumas of our youths that stretch like unending forests through into our adult lives, how they change us into unrecognisable entities both good and bad. And how these memories twist into deadly and evil hate filled things. You’ve seen all the read-alike comps to a certain smash-hit horror movie that came out in May (not that one, the other one), and I’ll say that those comps are apt. If you love analog and liminal space horror, this one is definitely for you!
But on another note, one of things about this book that I found spoke to me was it’s overall messaging of facing our demons, facing the hate and the betrayal and the fear and monsters within that want to isolate us, that want to tell us that we are not worthy or we are undeserving of the good in our lives. Sometimes, you read a book that just feels like it was written solely for you, and it makes your soul sing. (I know other people like this book but I’m convinced Wendig woke up one day and decided “hey, I’ll write a book for that bald guy from England. I know he’ll WEN-dig it!” and then proceeded to hammer out this masterpiece).
And we can all be saved through THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!
This was my first Wendig and it certainly won’t be my last. I am thinking about picking up Black River Orchard next for… vague reasons. The Staircase In The Woods is an atmospheric, emotionally charged horror thriller through our inner demons made manifest. The way Chuck handles the scares are exciting, the way he writes these short choppy chapters that keep you going and needing to read just one more chapter before you go to bed but now its 4am so what’s the point in sleep when coffee exists. I genuinely did read this book in two days, and it has easily climbed the whirling staircase that is the best books I’ve ever read to ascend to another plane of existence.
Leave a Reply