The article contains spoilers for Wild Spaces by S.L. Coney
When I entered The Book Nook on a wet October afternoon, desperately needing their Apple Pie Matcha, my eyes darted towards the last mystery book at the check-out. Its wrapping was beautiful and autumnal, with pine cones dancing across the paper and a pumpkin sticker neatly holding the folding together.
I’ve been stuck in a slight reading rut and wanted to change that. It felt like a sign. I had to get it.
Eager to find out what adventure lived beneath the wrapping paper, I opened it as soon as I came home. It was a hardback (how snazzy!), with a stunning cover of a young boy and a wolf-like dog. If the book included a dog, I was immediately sold.
But then I started reading…
My problem with Teach
The gothic horror follows a young boy whose life turns upside down when his grandfather abruptly arrives at his South Carolina home. His arrival brings unease and strife to the small family and leads to the unravelling of his horrific secret.
The book commences with the dog, Teach, somehow finding himself at the boy’s house. We aren’t told how or why, but I thought it was a sweet start; it illustrated the growing bond between the boy and his dog. Then I flicked over a page. The story has moved on to introduce us to “the monster” (more commonly referred to as ‘the grandfather’).
Throughout Wild Spaces, S.L. Coney often alludes to the closeness between Teach and the boy, so I don’t think a formal introduction to Teach was necessary. It slows down the plot, especially when Teach isn’t the main character. Frankly, the dog is more of a plot device than anything else. He’s only there to growl at the granddad to prove to us that he is, in fact, strange, and to protectively tug at the boy’s shirt whenever grandpa’s near.
Using a dog to make us suspicious of a character is lazy writing. It would’ve been better if Wild Spaces portrayed the grandfather in a scarier way. Yes, he’s a quirky old man whose shoes don’t match his board shorts and Ron Jon T-shirt, but so what? I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
Newsflash: a family bears resemblances!
- “But the old man’s eyes, those are unmistakable – they’re the same deep, turbulent blue as his mother’s, as his own.”
- “You know, you look like your mother.”
- “Turns out his grandfather, too, has the same nose wrinkle as the boy’s mother.”
- “Dad? Do I look like Mom?”
These are just a few examples of the constant – and I mean constant – nudges of their familial relations. I thought there was a purpose to this; that, perhaps, it would turn out the boy isn’t actually his father’s son. But no. These ‘reminders’ of their familial ties are completely useless.
Coming across these reminders on every second page, I thought the big, dark secret would explode into some complicated family drama. I believed it had something to do with why the mother abandoned her family, and why she and her father didn’t get along. I was ready for it to get really dark, and to finally catch a glimpse of their family trauma!
Nope. Nothing like that.
Instead, these comparisons were meant to depict the boy’s changing from child to teenager. That’s one freaky (and smelly) revelation, but not quite the one I was expecting.
The boy, the grandfather and the family with no name
For some reason, no one but the dog has a name in Wild Spaces.
I can understand the artistic choice for this. It might’ve been used to reinforce the theme of a lost or changing identity or to suggest that, even though they’re a family, they’re foreigners to each other. Perhaps it wasn’t the best choice to use in a book that holds such a complicated family dynamic, though, because then we end up with a sentence like this: “The boy’s mother gives his father a tiny head shake.”
Not the hardest sentence in the book to wrap your head around, but it builds up over time. There are one too many boys, mothers, fathers and grandfathers, and while you know who’s who, it becomes a mouthful and hard to digest.
The Big Twist: Zero out of ten-tacle
(Spoilers for Wild Spaces beneath – read at your own risk!)
I wish I knew how big a role the tentacles on the front cover played in the story before I started reading. I thought it might’ve had something to do with them living close to the beach… not with the grandfather being an octopus.
That’s right. The old man who wears black dress shoes has eight tentacles and eats people. Including his own daughter, might I add! The reason? I couldn’t tell you. He seemed pretty protective of her throughout the story, so I’ll just add it to the ‘weird decision, but okay’ pile.
The young boy witnesses his old man eating his mother and killing Teach, though, which is pretty tragic. I felt sad for the boy, but I was more baffled about the unfolding events than anything else.
And it gets even better.
The first thing the grandfather tells his grandson when seeing him again is: “It hurts like hell the first time, but anger helps. Come on, boy, I killed your mama. Get angry at me.”
I don’t know why – maybe it’s the fact that he’s an octopus and I can’t take it seriously – but I laughed out loud reading this line. It was truly the cherry on top.
I understand that Coney was trying to be Lovecraftian by including this monster, but it doesn’t hit the same. In fact, I think it missed the mark completely.
On the bright side…
Besides a few clichés, Wild Spaces is beautifully and vividly written. I’m in love with Coney’s unique phrasings, like “grape-soda purple sky” or “words started coming easier, like the medicine oiled his tongue.”
My other favourites include:
- “The world sits hot around them, his ears filled with the whoosh of blood like the rush of sea over sand.”
- “The moment stretching between them like saltwater taffy in the sunshine.”
- “With the wind whipping the branches, the trees are alive in a way they’ve never been before, their arms waving in the range of the storm. They have a language, one spoken in a creaking tongue.”
Coney is amazing at portraying nature and its unsteadiness.
They have written previous horror stories, Abandoned Places, Prey and Dead by Dawn all of which centre around people. I’d love to read a book by them that approaches horror through nature, such as its unpredictability and its ever-changing essence.
Overall, Wild Spaces wasn’t my cup of tea – but it might be yours!
Featured Image Credit: Julia Benko
A 23 year old aspiring writer.
News Editor at Brig Newspaper, 23/24. / Comment Editor, 22/23.
Msc International Journalism.
Founder of https://midwaymagazine.co.uk/
