Mystic Family Rituals Break Down in “The Bog Wife” https://ift.tt/tdaNq21
A family’s longstanding contract with their ancestral land unravels in Kay Chronister’s newest novel, The Bog Wife. Charlie, Eda, Wenna, Percy, and Nora are preparing to inherit their family’s cranberry bog through a ritual that generations of Haddesley children before them have performed; they will feed their dying father to the bog, then accept the new matriarch that emerges from its depths. The eldest son will marry the bog wife and continue the family line, along with the family’s ancient compact with the land that nurtures them: “Always the bog has belonged to us and we to it.” However, when the time comes and the children feed their father’s body to the bog, a bog wife does not appear.
This simple mishap calls everything into question, including the strange disappearance of their mother, the last bog wife that came from the land. In the year that follows their father’s death, each of the Haddesley children scrutinize the past while frantically attempting to carve out a future for themselves. While a few of them attempt to renew the covenant with the bog using extreme measures, others start to wonder what would happen if they left it. Riveting, haunting, and gorgeous, The Bog Wife is a novel about the cycles of life and breaking tradition.
Set on remote farmlands in modern West Virginia, The Bog Wife captures a family that is frozen in time, ushering readers into the desolate, dilapidated Haddesley manor and the practices of those who reside there. Upon meeting the Haddesley siblings in the first chapter, it is very easy to tell that things have already gone wrong, with Nora hiding invasive mushrooms found in the bog so as not to alarm her brother, Percy frustrated with the bog’s increasingly sickly state, Charlie disengaged and only offering the minimum amount of help, Eda fussing over their father, and Wenna nowhere to be found.
From that moment, I found myself entirely captivated by the Haddesley siblings. The novel switches perspectives between each of them, with Chronister providing highly introspective and fascinating character work in each chapter. Even with six characters to juggle, she is masterful in tugging out the pain and desires of sibling, with the root cause often connected to the family’s struggles: Nora’s loneliness and fear of abandonment, Eda’s duty to the compact, Wenna’s duty to her siblings’ survival, Charlie’s impotence and lack of self-worth, Percy’s belief in the land and what it could provide them.
It’s impressive how interconnected they are, as well as how certain combinations of siblings are foils to the other. The most clear-cut example of this would be Charlie and Percy, as they are the only potential patriarchs of their siblings, with Charlie feeling like the bog rejected him by not providing a bog wife and Percy feeling pressured to take decisive and extreme actions to be the only potential patriarch. There is also Eda and Wenna, both of whom seek out answers outside the Haddesley compact and in the modern world, and Percy and Nora, who cling to the bog in opposite ways. These tensions between the siblings propels them forward and makes things more tense as each of them find their own answers to the question of what happens next with the land.
In addition to the intriguing Haddesleys, I was fascinated by the supernatural elements of The Bog Wife. The story is centered around the inheritance ritual with the land, with very few indications of any sort of magic or fantastical elements up until the very end. In addition to some historical details regarding the Haddesley’s history on the bog, the novel felt more speculative and mystical-leaning. Nothing felt overdone or overdramatized, and I liked that the bog itself felt like a character, with Chronister giving it ways to “speak” to the children that injected just the right amount of mysticism into the novel.
With an evocative setting, titillating mystery, and thought-provoking character work, The Bog Wife is harrowing and breathtaking.
FICTION The Bog Wife
By Kay Chronister
Counterpoint Press
Published October 1, 2024
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