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The Loney
"If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest.
It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is.
I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn't stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget...."
It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is.
I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn't stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget...."
368 pages, Hardcover
First published September 29, 2014
About the author
Andrew Michael Hurley
20 books700 followersAndrew Michael Hurley (born 1975) is a British writer whose debut novel, The Loney, was published in a limited edition of 278 copies on 1 October 2014 by Tartarus Press[ and was published under Hodder and Stoughton's John Murray imprint in 2015.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,229 reviews
June 28, 2016
This was a bit of an odd one. Maybe my expectations were too high after all the praise I've heard about it, but I didn't find myself connecting with this in the same way that others have. Too much was left unexplained, meaning by the half way mark I was beginning to lose my patience, and I really struggled to see where the story was going. The ending itself left me mystified. I didn't realise going into this that there would be so much on religion, as it follows a devoutly (I would say fanatically) religious community. Perhaps this is way I struggled to relate to it much. It's also a hard book to describe; not quite creepy enough to be called horror, and lacking a satisfying enough plot to be a thriller or mystery. Saying that I really liked how the author wrote the characters, who were all well developed and realistic to the point that I took a real disliking to certain characters! That was really well done. The relationship between the two brothers and their way of communicating was also really touching. Ultimately, I'm not sure whether I'd recommend this or not. It didn't quite work for me personally, but that doesn't mean I think it's a bad book or one that others won't enjoy.
January 11, 2016
This shining star of a book has been so thoroughly praised I feel like a heretic in raising my lonely voice in disagreement!
Let me start, though, with what I enjoyed about The Loney. Firstly, Andrew Hurley's prose is lucid and visual, evocative of the scenes he is describing to the extent that I felt unusually present in the narrative. His characters are thoroughly well drawn - and that's no easy accomplishment in a multi-character novel like this. He also manages to engender, from the beginning, an air of heart rate raising uneasiness. It's a little like going to a horror movie you know nothing about. You know something's going to happen, you're just not sure what!
In my opinion it is these two elements that carry you along, in spite of, rather than because of the plot. By the time I was about half way through 'The Loney,' I was begging to lose patience with the fact that little had actually happened. Others will no doubt take the view that the first half of the book is necessary to the building of character. I kind of go along with this, particularly as the characters are entirely (and in some cases painfully) believable.
However, I still get the impression that the book would have benefited from a rather more ruthless editor with a big red pen. There were too many plot threads that went undeveloped for my liking. What did the existence of rifle actually contribute? What was the benefit to the story of the narrator being able (outrageously) to listen in on the confessions of his parents and others? At 320 pages (and over 100,000 words) the book could have beneficially been tightened to nearer 250 pages (and therefore maybe 80-90,000 words).
That said, the last 100 pages or so were a mostly well crafted joy. The plot pace increased significantly, the characters remained important to me, the scenes etched on my visual cortex. Unfortunately, though the denouement, when it came, seemed piecemeal, short on power and failed to answer too many of my remaining questions.
I suspect this review will attract me my fair share of hate mail (well, maybe not literally) but my honest opinion is that this is still a novel in draft that would have benefited from a fair bit of further work. I don't in any sense begrudge Andrew Hurley his success with it and I'm surely open to the accusation that none of my books have yet won the Costa. However, I simply hope that when we see more from this clearly natural writer he and his editor will have taken more trouble to tie up the loose ends.
I shall now take cover from incoming incendiaries
:-)
Let me start, though, with what I enjoyed about The Loney. Firstly, Andrew Hurley's prose is lucid and visual, evocative of the scenes he is describing to the extent that I felt unusually present in the narrative. His characters are thoroughly well drawn - and that's no easy accomplishment in a multi-character novel like this. He also manages to engender, from the beginning, an air of heart rate raising uneasiness. It's a little like going to a horror movie you know nothing about. You know something's going to happen, you're just not sure what!
In my opinion it is these two elements that carry you along, in spite of, rather than because of the plot. By the time I was about half way through 'The Loney,' I was begging to lose patience with the fact that little had actually happened. Others will no doubt take the view that the first half of the book is necessary to the building of character. I kind of go along with this, particularly as the characters are entirely (and in some cases painfully) believable.
However, I still get the impression that the book would have benefited from a rather more ruthless editor with a big red pen. There were too many plot threads that went undeveloped for my liking. What did the existence of rifle actually contribute? What was the benefit to the story of the narrator being able (outrageously) to listen in on the confessions of his parents and others? At 320 pages (and over 100,000 words) the book could have beneficially been tightened to nearer 250 pages (and therefore maybe 80-90,000 words).
That said, the last 100 pages or so were a mostly well crafted joy. The plot pace increased significantly, the characters remained important to me, the scenes etched on my visual cortex. Unfortunately, though the denouement, when it came, seemed piecemeal, short on power and failed to answer too many of my remaining questions.
I suspect this review will attract me my fair share of hate mail (well, maybe not literally) but my honest opinion is that this is still a novel in draft that would have benefited from a fair bit of further work. I don't in any sense begrudge Andrew Hurley his success with it and I'm surely open to the accusation that none of my books have yet won the Costa. However, I simply hope that when we see more from this clearly natural writer he and his editor will have taken more trouble to tie up the loose ends.
I shall now take cover from incoming incendiaries
:-)
June 21, 2020
I love many kinds of novels, but near the top of my list are the following: scary novels, coming-of-age novels, novels with a sense of place, novels with a gothic atmosphere, well-written novels, novels set in rural backwaters, novels featuring houses with secrets, novels with emotional depth, and novels which deal honestly with questions of faith in an age of eroding belief. How lucky I was to have found The Loney, Andrew Michael Hurley's first novel. His book is all the things listed above and more.
The novel is set in Lancashire in the north of England, on a desolate stretch of beach called The Loney, where “a wild and useless length of English coastline” features the “dead mouth of a bay that filled and emptied twice a day,” where “the tide could come in quicker than a horse could run and every year a few people drowned.”
It is 1975, and this Holy Week—as in each preceding Holy Week--a London working class family (Mummer, Farther, and their two sons Hanny and Tonto), accompanied by a few friends and their parish priest, have come to make a pilgrimage to the local shrine of St. Anne. They come to fast, to pray, to confess their sins, and to ”look for God in the emerging springtime that, when it came, was hardly a spring at all.” Above all, they come—certainly Mummer comes—to ask for a miracle: Hanny, now an adolescent, still cannot speak and communicates only with signs.
His younger brother “Tonto” is our narrator. We follow him and Hanny as they explore the Loney, and he tells us a tale which involves one power struggle and at least three mysteries. The power struggle is between Mummer and young Father Bernard, whom she thinks lacks proper respect for the rigors of ancient ritual—not like Father Wilfred the former pastor, god rest his soul. The three mysteries: 1) what are the secrets of the old house where they are staying, 2) what is behind the apparent healings among the Lancashire locals, and 3) what—if anything—has this to do with the sketchy couple and the pregnant young girl who occupy the house across the bay?
The answers to these questions are often unsettling, and occasionally horrific. But as we see Father Bernard’s faith in action and how it differs from Mummer’s and Father Wilfred’s, as we begin discover the powerful and primitive beliefs of the people of the Lancashire countryside, we are drawn—as Tonto and Hanny are drawn—into questioning the nature of belief itself and our own relationship to faith.
Highly recommended.
January 15, 2016
Well deserved Costa First Novel Winner (2015)
There's a lot that could have gone wrong in this book. Every gothic/horror motif you can think of forms part of the story, including: moors/crumbling old house/dark and dank weather/broken down vehicles/woods/voracious nature/priests/animal mutilation/witches/laughing rooks... etc etc. It is fuelled by myth and susperstition. The Loney is personified, a character itself, full of malevolent will. Death lives there; natural or unnatural, it has become unremarkable.
Yet is is precisely for this reason that Hurley is on everybody's one-to-watch list. Because he made these work. All together. At once. In the same story. No wonder Stephen King was impressed.
His writing style is formidable, that this is a debut is ridiculous. His words move the story beyond the plot into a feeling, an atmosphere, an understanding that something is very wrong. It makes you feel anxious, uncertain; it haunts. It's not gory, because if it were, your imagination wouldn't be free to run wild. Instead, Hurley uses piercing description to lead you to the door, what you see through it is up to you...
Many thanks to Andrew Hurley, John Murray Press, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
There's a lot that could have gone wrong in this book. Every gothic/horror motif you can think of forms part of the story, including: moors/crumbling old house/dark and dank weather/broken down vehicles/woods/voracious nature/priests/animal mutilation/witches/laughing rooks... etc etc. It is fuelled by myth and susperstition. The Loney is personified, a character itself, full of malevolent will. Death lives there; natural or unnatural, it has become unremarkable.
Yet is is precisely for this reason that Hurley is on everybody's one-to-watch list. Because he made these work. All together. At once. In the same story. No wonder Stephen King was impressed.
His writing style is formidable, that this is a debut is ridiculous. His words move the story beyond the plot into a feeling, an atmosphere, an understanding that something is very wrong. It makes you feel anxious, uncertain; it haunts. It's not gory, because if it were, your imagination wouldn't be free to run wild. Instead, Hurley uses piercing description to lead you to the door, what you see through it is up to you...
Many thanks to Andrew Hurley, John Murray Press, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
June 13, 2016
It begins with the discovery of a child's body. Smith is the narrator of The Loney. He is looking back on events from his childhood and they are presented with all the innocence of the time and non of the hindsight of the adult. Drenched in atmosphere and relentlessly bleak, the Loney is an isolated, ominous and foreboding part of the northern coast where the incessant rain never stops. The book draws on some of the best in gothic literature in its storytelling.
Smith who looks after his mute and numerously learning disabled brother, Andrew, are part of a Catholic pilgrimage. They are accompanied by their parents, of whom Mummers looms particularly large, a newly appointed priest, Father Bernard, and others. Mummers is convinced that Andrew will be cured. The conviction in faith and ritual that underlies the tale and where it falls short is what drives the book. The group are staying at the Moorings, owned by a taxidermist, which has its own secrets.
Mummers is less than happy with the new younger priest who is more accommodating in his faith. The previous zealous, ritual obsessed priest, Father Wilfred, is now mysteriously dead leaving behind questions. As the boys play, they come across a pregnant teenage girl who intrigues them. The locals are less than welcoming and Smith finds himself eavesdropping on conversations. An unsettling atmosphere of menace pervades throughout. I was particularly enamoured of the relationship between the two brothers.
The author writes in beautiful lucid prose. He trusts the reader to pick up parts of the story and take it where they will, particularly the ending. Those who are uncomfortable with ambiguity might find this frustrating. Mummers aspirations for her boys are doomed for disappointment. However, I was not disappointed with the book, it beguiles and captures the reader in an unforgettable story that is of its time, the 1970s, and more specifically the place, the Loney. An absolute delight to read and savour. Cannot recommend it enough. Many thanks to John Murray Books for an ARC.
Smith who looks after his mute and numerously learning disabled brother, Andrew, are part of a Catholic pilgrimage. They are accompanied by their parents, of whom Mummers looms particularly large, a newly appointed priest, Father Bernard, and others. Mummers is convinced that Andrew will be cured. The conviction in faith and ritual that underlies the tale and where it falls short is what drives the book. The group are staying at the Moorings, owned by a taxidermist, which has its own secrets.
Mummers is less than happy with the new younger priest who is more accommodating in his faith. The previous zealous, ritual obsessed priest, Father Wilfred, is now mysteriously dead leaving behind questions. As the boys play, they come across a pregnant teenage girl who intrigues them. The locals are less than welcoming and Smith finds himself eavesdropping on conversations. An unsettling atmosphere of menace pervades throughout. I was particularly enamoured of the relationship between the two brothers.
The author writes in beautiful lucid prose. He trusts the reader to pick up parts of the story and take it where they will, particularly the ending. Those who are uncomfortable with ambiguity might find this frustrating. Mummers aspirations for her boys are doomed for disappointment. However, I was not disappointed with the book, it beguiles and captures the reader in an unforgettable story that is of its time, the 1970s, and more specifically the place, the Loney. An absolute delight to read and savour. Cannot recommend it enough. Many thanks to John Murray Books for an ARC.
November 3, 2019
Fantastic, dark read especially for Halloween and for those who are fans of the first season of True Detective, Just finished this for the second, maybe third? time. The slightly freaky build up in the first third has little tidbits you may not really note the first time through, but in hindsight, the first chapters contain foggy clues as to the nature of what is to come.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: The Loney has me! A long, malevolent spit of sand reaching out into the cold Irish sea, the Loney also holds ancient dead and plenty of secrets in its depths. Beautifully written, this novel entirely deserves all the awards its been crowned with.
The dark, gothic story weaves together pagan folklore and fervent Catholicism into a mourning shroud here. The tale features two young brothers from London, one an altar boy and his elder who is mute and cognitively disabled. For years, their devout parents and their parish priest have taken the boys to a windswept retreat to celebrate Easter week, but more importantly to visit a shrine where healing waters are hoped to cure the boy who cannot speak. "It was our week of penitence and prayer in which we would make our confessions, visit Saint Anne’s shrine, and look for God in the emerging springtime, that, when it came, was hardly a spring at all; nothing so vibrant and effusive. It was more the soggy afterbirth of winter."
The remote old estate that the priest rents out was built by a wealthy gentleman who took up taxidermy as a hobby. Preserved rats, two hideously stuffed chimpanzees seated on a tandem bicycle, and a sealed jar of urine are part of the odd charms of staying in this place called Moorings. The never ending rain and mist, fearsome locals speaking in bizarre dialects, and a mysterious, heavily pregnant 13 year old add twists of fear to the atmosphere.
We know, as readers, that this Catholic shrine will not bring Hanny his voice or solid intellect, and the new priest who accompanies them this time does too. But a local woman whose blind eyes were the color of unwashed mushrooms can now suddenly see, just a few days later. The stinted and long dead apple trees bear luscious, dripping fruit overnight. A lightening-struck tree, dead for decades, has sprouted a tender new limb. There is indeed some sort of strange healing going on, but it has nothing to do with the Catholic faith.
Consider this bible quote at the start of the novel: Matthew 9:32-34
While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
I know, right?? Creepy.
I absolutely adored listening to this as a free audio book and just ordered a used hardback copy of it for my son. Does that tell you how much I liked it? Even when writing tidbits about rough neighborhoods in London - something that has nothing to do with the eerie aspects of the story, this author shines. "We would turn in our seats and gawp out of the windows at the scruffy, staring children who had no toys but the bits of wood and metal torn off the broken furniture in their front yards where aproned women stood and screeched obscenities at the men stumbling out of corner pubs. It was a safari park of degradation." What a phrase!
Sharing more details here will only spoil the little surprises for you, but I will say this.
The Loney is not a novel that wraps itself up with a big burst of fireworks at the end. There are mysteries in here that - unless you know about the healing folklore surrounding Lancashire, England - might leave you wanting a more detailed description when the book closes. If you know anything about Druid customs or old stories about fairies hiring midwives with magic ointments, then you may be a bit more satisfied. I didn't know any of these things, but was able to see the parallels between key Christian events and the sordid activities by locals. The ringing of bells, stones that make one invisible, and a seagull with a broken wing are little things to notice. The tale is a slow, languorous burn, so take your time smoking your way through. When the key scene comes, pay attention, and think back to earlier portions of the story. If you take your time, things will click with an evil glint.
Lastly, if you're a Catholic, prepare to possibly be offended. The good news is that the Irish priest who plays the biggest role in the story is a gem, and he has a Labrador retriever to boot. Perfect dog to go chase a ball at the beach, but never, ever, ever at the Loney. 5 stars.
UPDATE FOR HALLOWEEN 2019
I love that one of the bottles similar to the creepy one in this story recently appeared! Love it.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-...
ORIGINAL REVIEW: The Loney has me! A long, malevolent spit of sand reaching out into the cold Irish sea, the Loney also holds ancient dead and plenty of secrets in its depths. Beautifully written, this novel entirely deserves all the awards its been crowned with.
The dark, gothic story weaves together pagan folklore and fervent Catholicism into a mourning shroud here. The tale features two young brothers from London, one an altar boy and his elder who is mute and cognitively disabled. For years, their devout parents and their parish priest have taken the boys to a windswept retreat to celebrate Easter week, but more importantly to visit a shrine where healing waters are hoped to cure the boy who cannot speak. "It was our week of penitence and prayer in which we would make our confessions, visit Saint Anne’s shrine, and look for God in the emerging springtime, that, when it came, was hardly a spring at all; nothing so vibrant and effusive. It was more the soggy afterbirth of winter."
The remote old estate that the priest rents out was built by a wealthy gentleman who took up taxidermy as a hobby. Preserved rats, two hideously stuffed chimpanzees seated on a tandem bicycle, and a sealed jar of urine are part of the odd charms of staying in this place called Moorings. The never ending rain and mist, fearsome locals speaking in bizarre dialects, and a mysterious, heavily pregnant 13 year old add twists of fear to the atmosphere.
We know, as readers, that this Catholic shrine will not bring Hanny his voice or solid intellect, and the new priest who accompanies them this time does too. But a local woman whose blind eyes were the color of unwashed mushrooms can now suddenly see, just a few days later. The stinted and long dead apple trees bear luscious, dripping fruit overnight. A lightening-struck tree, dead for decades, has sprouted a tender new limb. There is indeed some sort of strange healing going on, but it has nothing to do with the Catholic faith.
Consider this bible quote at the start of the novel: Matthew 9:32-34
While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
I know, right?? Creepy.
I absolutely adored listening to this as a free audio book and just ordered a used hardback copy of it for my son. Does that tell you how much I liked it? Even when writing tidbits about rough neighborhoods in London - something that has nothing to do with the eerie aspects of the story, this author shines. "We would turn in our seats and gawp out of the windows at the scruffy, staring children who had no toys but the bits of wood and metal torn off the broken furniture in their front yards where aproned women stood and screeched obscenities at the men stumbling out of corner pubs. It was a safari park of degradation." What a phrase!
Sharing more details here will only spoil the little surprises for you, but I will say this.
The Loney is not a novel that wraps itself up with a big burst of fireworks at the end. There are mysteries in here that - unless you know about the healing folklore surrounding Lancashire, England - might leave you wanting a more detailed description when the book closes. If you know anything about Druid customs or old stories about fairies hiring midwives with magic ointments, then you may be a bit more satisfied. I didn't know any of these things, but was able to see the parallels between key Christian events and the sordid activities by locals. The ringing of bells, stones that make one invisible, and a seagull with a broken wing are little things to notice. The tale is a slow, languorous burn, so take your time smoking your way through. When the key scene comes, pay attention, and think back to earlier portions of the story. If you take your time, things will click with an evil glint.
Lastly, if you're a Catholic, prepare to possibly be offended. The good news is that the Irish priest who plays the biggest role in the story is a gem, and he has a Labrador retriever to boot. Perfect dog to go chase a ball at the beach, but never, ever, ever at the Loney. 5 stars.
UPDATE FOR HALLOWEEN 2019
I love that one of the bottles similar to the creepy one in this story recently appeared! Love it.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-...
June 24, 2018
Astonishing literary fiction with a gothic dark undertone that had me alert from beginning to end. I read this in hours, unable to put it down and it's a powerfully written novel that doesn't need a fast pace or out of this world twists or in your face horror to get the story across to you. Mesmerising and disturbing.
The Loney is a bleak place off the coast of Lancashire, England. A place steeped in history, religious belief and dark undercurrents. A pilgrimage is made back to this mournful place by a group of church-goers and their new Parish Priest, what then unfolds is nothing short of imagination genius. It's more what is not said in this book that makes it so brilliant, it's the way you put pieces together and wonder if you've arrived at the right conclusion.
Miracles. Bodies. Death. Superstition. Hidden Rooms. The Loney. Then there is the..something, the something. Oh my word. I'm truly lost for words where the ending took me. It took much reflection on the entire book, beautifully written.
Don't expect a bloody gory horror but if it's an atmospheric, chilling, gothic flavoured read you enjoy you will love this as I did. I was quite literally enmeshed with the writing from the first word. Time just flew by. This win The Costa Award 2015 and for a new work of literary fiction I can see why. 5 stars from me and long-listed for my Top Ten Reads 2016.
Let The Loney spill it's secrets...
The Loney is a bleak place off the coast of Lancashire, England. A place steeped in history, religious belief and dark undercurrents. A pilgrimage is made back to this mournful place by a group of church-goers and their new Parish Priest, what then unfolds is nothing short of imagination genius. It's more what is not said in this book that makes it so brilliant, it's the way you put pieces together and wonder if you've arrived at the right conclusion.
Miracles. Bodies. Death. Superstition. Hidden Rooms. The Loney. Then there is the..something, the something. Oh my word. I'm truly lost for words where the ending took me. It took much reflection on the entire book, beautifully written.
Don't expect a bloody gory horror but if it's an atmospheric, chilling, gothic flavoured read you enjoy you will love this as I did. I was quite literally enmeshed with the writing from the first word. Time just flew by. This win The Costa Award 2015 and for a new work of literary fiction I can see why. 5 stars from me and long-listed for my Top Ten Reads 2016.
Let The Loney spill it's secrets...
August 20, 2015
I struggled with this story. I was never quite sure where it was going, or why it was going there. I felt I should have been more on edge than I was, and more shocked than I actually felt. It was dark, but not disturbing enough to really shock me, and it tiptoed around the edges of what was actually happening so that I came away wondering what I'd actually just read about. Not really to my taste.
October 27, 2023
supernatural horror without the supernatural horror. unless you consider fanatical, hypocritical so-called devotion to an organized religion like Christianity whose tenets often aren't actually understood let alone followed by many of its practitioners... to be supernatural horror. okay, this is supernatural horror! and I think I've used the phrase "supernatural horror" enough, right?
wrong! and I was also wrong saying that the supernatural horror here is only based around organized religion, when there is definitely some pagan or satanic horror happening, involving wishes for healing being granted and an infant being tortured. but it is important to note that these horrors are only a small and subtle part of the book. they are not front and center, not blatant. readers looking for an evening of supernatural horror will perhaps be better off reading the Bible, which includes far more examples of such things.
but for those readers who are looking for superbly rendered and very dreary atmosphere, a contemplation of the power and the challenges of faith, lovely and very realistic characterization of a non-believing boy who is faking it until he gets free of his hysterical mum (not to mention his sadistic pastor, but fortunately that guy is dead within the opening pages) and of that boy's very endearing, developmentally disabled older brother, and a narrative that is all about creating a feeling of oppression, dread, and melancholy... this is your book! "enjoy" it!
forgive the scare quotes, there is a lot to enjoy, and to consider. besides what I mentioned above, I particularly appreciated the serious exploration of what faith can actually look like. I guess that's a nice way of saying that the book shows that both Christianity and certain other religions involve rituals like blood sacrifice (not to mention the consumption of flesh), and the miracles of God can look a lot like the gifts bestowed by certain other supernatural figures. interesting stuff.
synopsis: a lad has to deal with fanatical assholes. his brother falls in love. supernatural horror happens.
wrong! and I was also wrong saying that the supernatural horror here is only based around organized religion, when there is definitely some pagan or satanic horror happening, involving wishes for healing being granted and an infant being tortured. but it is important to note that these horrors are only a small and subtle part of the book. they are not front and center, not blatant. readers looking for an evening of supernatural horror will perhaps be better off reading the Bible, which includes far more examples of such things.
but for those readers who are looking for superbly rendered and very dreary atmosphere, a contemplation of the power and the challenges of faith, lovely and very realistic characterization of a non-believing boy who is faking it until he gets free of his hysterical mum (not to mention his sadistic pastor, but fortunately that guy is dead within the opening pages) and of that boy's very endearing, developmentally disabled older brother, and a narrative that is all about creating a feeling of oppression, dread, and melancholy... this is your book! "enjoy" it!
forgive the scare quotes, there is a lot to enjoy, and to consider. besides what I mentioned above, I particularly appreciated the serious exploration of what faith can actually look like. I guess that's a nice way of saying that the book shows that both Christianity and certain other religions involve rituals like blood sacrifice (not to mention the consumption of flesh), and the miracles of God can look a lot like the gifts bestowed by certain other supernatural figures. interesting stuff.
synopsis: a lad has to deal with fanatical assholes. his brother falls in love. supernatural horror happens.
August 10, 2017
I’m always wary towards every ideology people try to force on me. No matter what it may concern. Religious beliefs, political views, approach to abortion laws, capital punishment, to what I should read, listen to, watch. People have brains in order to use them, I guess. I don’t need preaching to be able to distinguish between good and evil, I don’t want my taxes being spent on populist actions of politicians, I don’t want to be threaten with every possible plague on the earth and hell fire after my death. I don’t…
Well, some of my words are neither here nor there considering the novel but my point is that there is a small group that creates really close community, with strong touch of religiousness - I’m reluctant to call them sect- though sometimes their devotion had something very unhealthy under the surface. I can understand that in such an insecure times, in such disfunctional balance in the world people need reassurance and encouragement. Some people are strong enough on their own while others need support.
And there is a boy, Andrew, called Hanny. He’s mute and somewhat withdrawn, perhaps autistic though it’s not defined. Every year the group with their priest-guide, father Wilfred, set off to the coastal Loney in kind of pilgrimage, to visit the remotely located sanctuary and pray for cure Andrew. On the spot they used to stay at Moorings, an isolated and rather creepy house.
I pretty disliked the mother of the boys, Andrew had a brother who is the narrator here, her actions- though I understand her motives, I’m a mother too – felt so unexcusable and wrong at times. She so desperately needed a miracle that I thought she wanted it for herself, for without the sign from God her faith could fall apart as proverbial house of cards. After the death of father Wilfred she constantly scolded their new shepherd for everything, for not being Wilfred mostly, and wanted everything was as before. I believe she loved Andrew but she was totally dismissing his needs and not paying attention to his fear.
I disliked, in the beginning at any rate, father Wilfred. I’m oponent to every attempt of threatening, to hell and all that stuff. I’m not against religious people- I’m only cautious about an orthodox and fundamentalist views and deeds. I was more prone to understand father Wilfred in his doubts and weakness and crisis of faith. He definitely felt more human then than punishing altar boys for masturbating or watching dirty magazines.
As expected we have a miracle. The believers will see here the hand of God, sceptics will stay, well, sceptic. And Andrew in fact will not remember anything of what really happened. I very much liked atmosphere that emanated from that novel. If you fancy something set in mostly gloomy and neglected surrounding, bathed in rainy and foggy weather, and owerwhelming feeling of despondency you may give The Loney a go. If you don’t mind meeting a bunch of somewhat alienated people and unfriendly locals you shouldn’t feel disappointed either. Well, agree the novel suffers from too many loose ends and some threads felt rather decorative than necessary device but overall a very promising debut of the novel.
February 23, 2022
(Review originally published on my blog, May 2015)
Was ever a book more suited to a grey and drizzly Bank Holiday weekend? (Which it was, when I read it.) Steeped in religious symbolism and quintessentially British bleakness, The Loney is an odd, dreary sort of horror story - the tale of two boys, our nameless narrator and his mute brother, Andrew, known as Hanny. The Loney is a place - a desolate stretch of northern coast, and one of a number of deliberately evocative place names in this story, along with the village of Coldbarrow and the houses Thessaly and Moorings.
Originally published independently - by Tartarus Press - last year and now picked up by Hodder & Stoughton imprint John Murray (the new hardback is out in August), The Loney is gathering a buzz in the media and, inevitably, on Twitter. A piece on 'the ghost story's renaissance' in the Telegraph had this to say: 'Modern classics in this genre are rare, and instant ones even rarer; The Loney, however, looks as though it may be both.' The Loney isn't really a ghost story, but it has plenty of the genre's classic traits - such as the framing narrative, in which the narrator is looking back on this period of his youth, and occasionally mentions talking about the Loney with his therapist. There's a pinch of black magic and an inexplicable transformation, but much of the story concentrates on building atmosphere; constructing a nuanced portrait of the boys' really rather grim lives; realising the feverish, desperate sense of hope surrounding the group's presence at Moorings.
It's apt that the central family has the surname Smith: The Loney is like a Morrissey song made novel ('Everyday is Like Sunday' with shades of 'Yes, I Am Blind' and maybe a bit of 'November Spawned a Monster') and, with a depiction of a poor Catholic childhood central to the story, I was reminded of the earlier parts of his autobiography more than once. The story is set in the 1970s, and it's perfectly redolent of a time not so long ago, but almost unthinkable now, before technology transformed the possibility of any place seeming entirely unknowable. Of course, the inability to 'call for help' is a mainstay of horror stories, and isn't limited to those set before everyone had a mobile phone - but here, it's used particularly effectively to help portray an era, a way of life, a system of belief in its death throes. The Loney is at once acutely bleak and strangely beautiful:
Was ever a book more suited to a grey and drizzly Bank Holiday weekend? (Which it was, when I read it.) Steeped in religious symbolism and quintessentially British bleakness, The Loney is an odd, dreary sort of horror story - the tale of two boys, our nameless narrator and his mute brother, Andrew, known as Hanny. The Loney is a place - a desolate stretch of northern coast, and one of a number of deliberately evocative place names in this story, along with the village of Coldbarrow and the houses Thessaly and Moorings.
Day after day, the rain swept in off the sea in huge, vaporous curtains that licked Coldbarrow from view and then moved inland to drench the cattle fields. The beach turned to brown sludge and the dunes ruptured and sometimes crumbled altogether, so that the sea and the marsh water united in vast lakes, undulating with the carcasses of uprooted trees and bright red carrageen ripped from the sea bed.The boys travel to the Loney as part of a sort of pilgrimage. They are led by a newly arrived priest, Father Bernard, appointed after the death of the previous incumbent, Father Wilfred. With them are the boys' parents, who they call 'Mummer and Farther'; Father Wilfred's brother and his wife, Mr and Mrs Belderboss; and the church housekeeper, Miss Bunce, and her fiancé, David. The religious aspect of the group's gathering is more than mere exposition: Mummer believes it is here that Hanny will be 'cured' of his mutism and learning difficulties, and it's the perceived power of faith and ritual - ultimately, the insufficiency of faith - that informs the plot's development and the real horror at the Loney's heart.
Originally published independently - by Tartarus Press - last year and now picked up by Hodder & Stoughton imprint John Murray (the new hardback is out in August), The Loney is gathering a buzz in the media and, inevitably, on Twitter. A piece on 'the ghost story's renaissance' in the Telegraph had this to say: 'Modern classics in this genre are rare, and instant ones even rarer; The Loney, however, looks as though it may be both.' The Loney isn't really a ghost story, but it has plenty of the genre's classic traits - such as the framing narrative, in which the narrator is looking back on this period of his youth, and occasionally mentions talking about the Loney with his therapist. There's a pinch of black magic and an inexplicable transformation, but much of the story concentrates on building atmosphere; constructing a nuanced portrait of the boys' really rather grim lives; realising the feverish, desperate sense of hope surrounding the group's presence at Moorings.
I often thought there was too much time there. That the place was sick with it. Haunted by it. Time didn't leak away as it should. There was nowhere for it to go and no modernity to hurry it along. It collected as the black water did on the marshes and remained and stagnated in the same way.The most disturbing details don't appear to have much to do with anything supernatural: what to make of the heavily pregnant girl the brothers meet - the narrator initially estimates her age as thirteen or fourteen, and later states 'she seemed even younger than I'd first thought' - who says airily of the impending birth, 'it's nothing. I've done this before. It gets easier the more you have' - and is never seen again? The Telegraph piece compares Hurley's work to that of Robert Aickman, and it's easy to see the resemblance in the sheer dread Hurley evokes here, as well as the depiction (indeed, personification) of nature as savage and cruel. Also Aickmanesque is the deeply ambiguous ending, concluding the story with either a stroke of genius or a frustrating cop-out, depending on your interpretation. (I have to say that personally, I was a little disappointed.)
It's apt that the central family has the surname Smith: The Loney is like a Morrissey song made novel ('Everyday is Like Sunday' with shades of 'Yes, I Am Blind' and maybe a bit of 'November Spawned a Monster') and, with a depiction of a poor Catholic childhood central to the story, I was reminded of the earlier parts of his autobiography more than once. The story is set in the 1970s, and it's perfectly redolent of a time not so long ago, but almost unthinkable now, before technology transformed the possibility of any place seeming entirely unknowable. Of course, the inability to 'call for help' is a mainstay of horror stories, and isn't limited to those set before everyone had a mobile phone - but here, it's used particularly effectively to help portray an era, a way of life, a system of belief in its death throes. The Loney is at once acutely bleak and strangely beautiful:
A train rushed past, leaving a skirl of litter and dust, and then the rails returned to their bright humming. In the scrubland beyond, the swifts were darting over the tufts of grass and the hard baked soil with its beetroot-coloured weeds. We watched them turning on their hairpins deftly as bats.I can certainly understand why The Loney might be labelled an instant classic. It's a seriously impressive first novel, and so successful at creating a setting that it's sure to linger in the memory.
May 7, 2020
Ok Costa coffee drinkers, you voted it book of the year and I gave it a whirl but I just couldn't see it I'm afraid. For me this is one of those books that you finish and you think, did I miss something? Having now read some other reviews I'm happier that I'm not the only one in this boat. I'm not going to review this book as I feel another reviewer has summed it up perfectly in a one liner, 'was this a travel guide to Cumbria or a handbook on priesthood?'
I'm losing faith in a lot of book awards, rarely do i enjoy them.
I'm losing faith in a lot of book awards, rarely do i enjoy them.
February 5, 2018
"Its walls had never contained a family. No one had ever laughed there."
A group of religious pilgrims embark to the Loney, an isolated and stormy coastline located a few hours away from London in England, with the intention of visiting a shrine and curing Hanny, a mute teenage boy who suffers from severe learning disabilities.
I've been dreading writing this review simply because I don't know what to say. It's a strange book, if someone asked me to give them a rundown of the plot it really wouldn't take very long and I'm not even sure how I'd go about explaining it. So, as I've described in the brief synopsis, a deeply religious family embark on a pilgrimage to the Loney, a bleak place off the coast of England, along with their parish priest, where they are seeking help for Hanny, who is mute. The story is really about Hanny and his brother, who is the unnamed narrator. Their relationship, and how they communicate, is one of the best things about the book. Hurley seems to have a skill for intricate character development, as the members of the party who go to the Loney are quite distinct and easily recognisable. So, that's one huge positive.
Another positive is the beauty of Hurley's writing. His descriptions of this stormy, wild landscape are breathtaking at times and really accentuate the gothic feel of this novel. The desolate landscape is chilling and there's a real sinister undertone that makes you feel slightly on edge. Hurley evokes an incredibly gloomy atmosphere within these pages and it's easy to get swept up in the tension between these characters at times.
Now... for the weak parts. When I started this book, I was loving the slow build-up, it was so beautifully layered and I was so intrigued as to where this was going to go. And then... I just feel like it never really went anywhere. This devastates me because this book had SO much potential. The writing is stunning, the setting is well-crafted, the characters are believable, and yet... the plot itself just falls flat on its face. The ending was semi-interesting, but it just wasn't enough to save it for me.
Just as a warning, The Loney is quite heavy on religious themes - this wasn't an issue for me, but I know some readers might be put off by this. It's not religious in a preachy way or anything, but a lot of the characters are devout Catholics and the storyline itself heavily revolves around some of the Catholic traditions over the Easter period.
So I guess I'm pretty disappointed. I was hoping this would be a gloomy, atmospheric read, and it was to a degree, but I need more than that. Unfortunately this only gets 2 and a half stars out of 5!
A group of religious pilgrims embark to the Loney, an isolated and stormy coastline located a few hours away from London in England, with the intention of visiting a shrine and curing Hanny, a mute teenage boy who suffers from severe learning disabilities.
I've been dreading writing this review simply because I don't know what to say. It's a strange book, if someone asked me to give them a rundown of the plot it really wouldn't take very long and I'm not even sure how I'd go about explaining it. So, as I've described in the brief synopsis, a deeply religious family embark on a pilgrimage to the Loney, a bleak place off the coast of England, along with their parish priest, where they are seeking help for Hanny, who is mute. The story is really about Hanny and his brother, who is the unnamed narrator. Their relationship, and how they communicate, is one of the best things about the book. Hurley seems to have a skill for intricate character development, as the members of the party who go to the Loney are quite distinct and easily recognisable. So, that's one huge positive.
Another positive is the beauty of Hurley's writing. His descriptions of this stormy, wild landscape are breathtaking at times and really accentuate the gothic feel of this novel. The desolate landscape is chilling and there's a real sinister undertone that makes you feel slightly on edge. Hurley evokes an incredibly gloomy atmosphere within these pages and it's easy to get swept up in the tension between these characters at times.
Now... for the weak parts. When I started this book, I was loving the slow build-up, it was so beautifully layered and I was so intrigued as to where this was going to go. And then... I just feel like it never really went anywhere. This devastates me because this book had SO much potential. The writing is stunning, the setting is well-crafted, the characters are believable, and yet... the plot itself just falls flat on its face. The ending was semi-interesting, but it just wasn't enough to save it for me.
Just as a warning, The Loney is quite heavy on religious themes - this wasn't an issue for me, but I know some readers might be put off by this. It's not religious in a preachy way or anything, but a lot of the characters are devout Catholics and the storyline itself heavily revolves around some of the Catholic traditions over the Easter period.
So I guess I'm pretty disappointed. I was hoping this would be a gloomy, atmospheric read, and it was to a degree, but I need more than that. Unfortunately this only gets 2 and a half stars out of 5!
November 26, 2016
When I finished The Loney I was thoroughly annoyed & felt that I’d wasted my time with a book that contrived to be a fast read that passed incredibly slowly. About three hours & a nap later what apparently had happened in the story jelled & I saw why one might compare it to The Wicker Man, as well as to some of the stories by Shirley Jackson and H. P. Lovecraft. From my current Christian perspective, this book is a story about two ways not to observe Easter: an extremely constricted & superstitious species of Roman Catholicism (which was already totally outdated in the 1970s when the principal action takes place) & an atavistic pagan survival which is cruel, messy & utterly ruthless. Guess which really works. With the Catholics you get simnel cake & a shrine of St. Anne with a magic well; the pagans make their most striking appearance as the Pace Eggers. I’d never heard of these before but found the Google images are priceless. The setting, in the neighbourhood of Morecambe Bay with its fierce and deadly tides, is wonderfully eerie too.
But we have some big defects as well. It is a tedious read & there are more loose ends than Penelope’s loom after she’d undone her day’s efforts. Just how did an American WWII army rifle find its way to an old house on the English coast, complete with ammunition? How did Hanny manage to load it without instruction & without ending up with a very sore thumb? Not to mention tossing it about as if it were a baton - an M1 weighs 9.5 lbs & is rather awkwardly balanced. An Enfield would have been a better choice, lighter, better balanced, easier to load & much more likely to be found in England. We are never told why the narrator’s parents are called Mummer & Farther & I kept wondering whether these were pet names or dialect pronunciations. In a non-rhotic London dialect I expect the former would sound to a North American ear like “mummah” but how would the latter sound different from usual? Also how could there have been a 300 year old shrine to St. Anne in England after the Reformation? There’s also a Catholic church with a frightening Day of Doom picture on the wall that’s supposed to have survived from the Middle Ages. Not likely.
So I give The Loney three stars, not because it’s middling, but because it runs the gamut from one to five back and forth so often the stars begin to twinkle. The Catholic characters are extremely depressing. It is hard to believe that Mummer is still under 40 & that Vatican II had occurred. She complains to Father Bernard - an Irish priest of somewhat liberal tendencies that he isn’t maintaining the standards of the sadistic & psychotic Father Wilfred. Once more I’m persuaded that the classic supernatural story does not work well at full length. (That may be one reason I’ve never become a fan of Stephen King & why I’ve bogged down on Sarah Rayne & F. G. Cottam.) At the length of The Lottery, Ancient Mysteries or Casting the Runes, pagan survivals work much better for me. But finding the Pace Eggers was worth the price of admission.
But we have some big defects as well. It is a tedious read & there are more loose ends than Penelope’s loom after she’d undone her day’s efforts. Just how did an American WWII army rifle find its way to an old house on the English coast, complete with ammunition? How did Hanny manage to load it without instruction & without ending up with a very sore thumb? Not to mention tossing it about as if it were a baton - an M1 weighs 9.5 lbs & is rather awkwardly balanced. An Enfield would have been a better choice, lighter, better balanced, easier to load & much more likely to be found in England. We are never told why the narrator’s parents are called Mummer & Farther & I kept wondering whether these were pet names or dialect pronunciations. In a non-rhotic London dialect I expect the former would sound to a North American ear like “mummah” but how would the latter sound different from usual? Also how could there have been a 300 year old shrine to St. Anne in England after the Reformation? There’s also a Catholic church with a frightening Day of Doom picture on the wall that’s supposed to have survived from the Middle Ages. Not likely.
So I give The Loney three stars, not because it’s middling, but because it runs the gamut from one to five back and forth so often the stars begin to twinkle. The Catholic characters are extremely depressing. It is hard to believe that Mummer is still under 40 & that Vatican II had occurred. She complains to Father Bernard - an Irish priest of somewhat liberal tendencies that he isn’t maintaining the standards of the sadistic & psychotic Father Wilfred. Once more I’m persuaded that the classic supernatural story does not work well at full length. (That may be one reason I’ve never become a fan of Stephen King & why I’ve bogged down on Sarah Rayne & F. G. Cottam.) At the length of The Lottery, Ancient Mysteries or Casting the Runes, pagan survivals work much better for me. But finding the Pace Eggers was worth the price of admission.
January 15, 2017
The narrator of this book is known only to us by his surname, ‘Smith’ or the nickname given to him by Father Bernard, ‘Tonto.’ We first meet him as a middle aged man, who is seeing a therapist for issues that we are, at first, unsure about. What is known to us is that the body of a baby has been found at an old house, near to where the narrator and a group of Catholic pilgrims used to visit in the 1970’s.
Gradually, as the story unfolds, we learn that Smith spent many Easters visiting the Loney – an isolated place on the coast, where there is a holy shrine. Smith’s brother Andrew, called Hanny, is mute, and possibly disabled, and the boy’s parents – ‘mummer’ and ‘farther’ visit the shrine with Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, their parish priest and the brother of Mr Belderboss. Mummer is desperate for a miracle, to restore Hanny to normality, but then and they stop visiting for some years and Father Wilfred seems to suffer a crisis of faith.
It is after the death of Father Wilfred that the Bishop wants to reinstate the Easter retreat, with the new, younger priest, Father Bernard. Off they set again in the minibus – with the addition of Miss Bunce and her fiancé David. Miss Bunce had suggested a different location and, you have to say that she was probably right to do so, even if she was out voted. The house, Moorings, is isolated and creepy, the locals distinctly unfriendly and there seems nothing to do, other than visit the shrine.
I was raised as a Catholic and I do recall being sent on similar retreats as a child, albeit in less creepy locations than this. This was also in the Seventies and so much of this book did have a certain resonance with me as a reader and I really enjoyed Smith’s ‘voice’ as he explained the relationships between the different characters and the events that led up to the last visit to the Loney and what happened there. Mummer is a difficult woman, who expects Smith to look after his brother and demands that Father Bernard do everything in exactly the same way as Father Wilfred did, and is unforgiving of any deviating from her idea of how things should be. The small group are divided, unhappy and unwelcome.
It is difficult to review this book without giving away the story and I have no wish to do that. Smith is not necessarily a narrator you can trust and some reviewers have complained that this novel does not resolve itself completely and, possibly, you will feel the same. However, this book deals with faith and that is something which is difficult to resolve, so I can forgive this. I think what the author gives us is a portrait of a time and place which really does ring true – I enjoyed every page.
Gradually, as the story unfolds, we learn that Smith spent many Easters visiting the Loney – an isolated place on the coast, where there is a holy shrine. Smith’s brother Andrew, called Hanny, is mute, and possibly disabled, and the boy’s parents – ‘mummer’ and ‘farther’ visit the shrine with Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, their parish priest and the brother of Mr Belderboss. Mummer is desperate for a miracle, to restore Hanny to normality, but then and they stop visiting for some years and Father Wilfred seems to suffer a crisis of faith.
It is after the death of Father Wilfred that the Bishop wants to reinstate the Easter retreat, with the new, younger priest, Father Bernard. Off they set again in the minibus – with the addition of Miss Bunce and her fiancé David. Miss Bunce had suggested a different location and, you have to say that she was probably right to do so, even if she was out voted. The house, Moorings, is isolated and creepy, the locals distinctly unfriendly and there seems nothing to do, other than visit the shrine.
I was raised as a Catholic and I do recall being sent on similar retreats as a child, albeit in less creepy locations than this. This was also in the Seventies and so much of this book did have a certain resonance with me as a reader and I really enjoyed Smith’s ‘voice’ as he explained the relationships between the different characters and the events that led up to the last visit to the Loney and what happened there. Mummer is a difficult woman, who expects Smith to look after his brother and demands that Father Bernard do everything in exactly the same way as Father Wilfred did, and is unforgiving of any deviating from her idea of how things should be. The small group are divided, unhappy and unwelcome.
It is difficult to review this book without giving away the story and I have no wish to do that. Smith is not necessarily a narrator you can trust and some reviewers have complained that this novel does not resolve itself completely and, possibly, you will feel the same. However, this book deals with faith and that is something which is difficult to resolve, so I can forgive this. I think what the author gives us is a portrait of a time and place which really does ring true – I enjoyed every page.
January 1, 2018
This book is so good and so beautifully written, and I was surprised to learn that The Loney is Hurley's first novel. It is rare that I find a debut so polished, so near-perfect, and so atmospheric all at the same time; the sort of book I am beyond happy to find because it is so very different. I could go on and on with effluvient praise here, but I won't. The only negative thing I have to say about this book is about its ending, but by the time I got there I was already so entrenched in the story and so in love with the writing that I just did not care, and I still don't. There's plot and then there is writing; this book is a beautiful blending of both.
Read this book. Oh my god. I loved it and am hardly likely to forget it. Ever.
http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2018...
Read this book. Oh my god. I loved it and am hardly likely to forget it. Ever.
http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2018...
September 9, 2016
This was a solid 4 star read for me until about the last 15% and then it just fell apart. Way too heavy on the religious zealotry for my likes and it felt like there was this big build up and then nothing but a fizzle.
November 11, 2016
I feel like I'm missing something. So many people loved this book but unfortunately I'm just not one of them.
This book was so slow! Nothing happens in the first half of the book it was boring to read because I just kept waiting and waiting for something to happen.
I do think the author writes good characters and near the end it is more suspenseful but it's all wasted because of the confusion of the plot. Nothing is clarified. I have no explanations for why I'm supposed to care about things that happened in the story, and I have no clue how to even explain what happened at the end. It frustrates me that this wasn't made more clear.
Also this book heavily involves religion and I personally couldn't connect so much to that so it made it even more difficult for me to read.
Plus I swear to God the amount of times that "he said" or "*insert name* said" is used in this book!!! It's soooo annoying just go to page 343 for example and you'll see what I mean.
Overall I just don't think this one was for me.
This book was so slow! Nothing happens in the first half of the book it was boring to read because I just kept waiting and waiting for something to happen.
I do think the author writes good characters and near the end it is more suspenseful but it's all wasted because of the confusion of the plot. Nothing is clarified. I have no explanations for why I'm supposed to care about things that happened in the story, and I have no clue how to even explain what happened at the end. It frustrates me that this wasn't made more clear.
Also this book heavily involves religion and I personally couldn't connect so much to that so it made it even more difficult for me to read.
Plus I swear to God the amount of times that "he said" or "*insert name* said" is used in this book!!! It's soooo annoying just go to page 343 for example and you'll see what I mean.
Overall I just don't think this one was for me.
April 24, 2016
The Loney with its mystical shrine, a mother full of religious fervor, taking her backward non talking son on a pilgrimage yearly hoping he would be healed. But the Looney is a strange place, a place where unexplained things seem to be happening. The questionable death of a priest, who lost his faith after the last pilgrimage.
Atmospheric, but very slow paced, never felt like I got a good understanding of the characters, except for the religious themes. Actually there is much of this book I didn't quite grasp. Dark, gothic story telling, well written, strange, I really think The Loney, that place is the main character. What happens there is up to interpretation, I have my thoughts but wonder what other readers will think.
ARC from publisher
Atmospheric, but very slow paced, never felt like I got a good understanding of the characters, except for the religious themes. Actually there is much of this book I didn't quite grasp. Dark, gothic story telling, well written, strange, I really think The Loney, that place is the main character. What happens there is up to interpretation, I have my thoughts but wonder what other readers will think.
ARC from publisher
July 11, 2016
Disappointing. Some half-decent descriptive prose undone by an almost non-existent plot. I reached page 280 before realising nothing had actually happened yet, and then, angry with myself for wasting precious reading time, I threw myself down the stairs. So now I've wasted two days on The Loney AND I've got a bad back. I don't know which I'm more depressed about.
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October 14, 2021This review was originally posted on my No Time is Passing blog: http://notimeispassing.wordpress.com/...
The Loney is Andrew Michael Hurley’s first novel, after two collections of short stories (The Unusual Death of Julie Christie and Cages And Other Stories). As usual for Tartarus Press, the book is sumptuously presented, the oblique miniature on the dustjacket giving nothing away about the novel’s contents but nonetheless setting the tone at just the right pitch right from the outset: a haunting, blurred landscape sliced through by a menacing swathe of trees; in the background stands the shadow of an old house; this glimpse no more than a far-off echo perhaps of the titular stretch of brooding coastline which although unspoken is one of the novel’s main protagonists.
On the surface, the book is the story of the narrator Smith (does he have a first name? Smith seems such an everyman surname…) and his mentally disabled brother Andrew, or Hanny as Smith calls him. They gather with family and acquaintances for a pilgrimage to a noted Catholic shrine in a remote coastal area of Lancashire. It is the story of a transformation, of transfiguration and of the place faith has in their lives and the lives of the others around the boys. There is resolution of a sort, but the genesis of the miracle is terrifyingly uncertain and what will come later, after we read the final pages of the book, is frighteningly unclear.
The book also seems to me to be about loneliness and isolation. The Loney: shades of alone and lonely, even though the word might at first seem a playful, harmless, even childish name for a stretch of countryside. It’s obvious as the book progresses that the Loney is unwelcoming and unforgiving. Hurley handles the effect of the landscape well and his narrative is allowed to unfurl at a pace which is perfectly suited to the story’s various minor and major revelations and which never feels hurried. The Loney as a place is ominously present throughout, even if not everything in the story occurs there. There is a highly convincing, pervasive atmosphere of uncomfortable dampness and otherness; a half-remembered feeling of the 1970s before the advent of a technology that allows nowhere to be forgotten or abandoned any longer.
Aside from the painterly skill with which he depicts the growing sense of unease and unreality in that forgotten landscape, it’s also noteworthy how the author reproduces the dialogue in the novel. The interaction of the dysfunctional main characters, all tied together by their devout Roman Catholicism and a strict over-reliance on its rituals and structure in the wake of the death of their former parish priest, is masterful. These people have little else in common but their faith, or what they perceive as faith; but without it, everything else is lost and relationships crumble. The scenes where the characters converse, particularly the narrator and Father Bernard, are remarkably credible and fluid. I was there with them, eavesdropping, uncomfortable and uncertain; and also afraid.
What is also critical in the protagonists’ lives and in the story proper is the part played by faith, even if it’s obvious by the end that such faith takes many forms, not all of them a matter of personal choice. I suspect that Hurley was brought up with Roman Catholicism: the detail of this in the novel is so authentic and convincing that I’d be surprised it he hadn’t been. Having had the same upbringing, I found the novel all the more realistic for the verisimilitude of religious detail – and, by its end, that authenticity makes things quite horrific.
Father Bernard calls Smith by a nickname: Tonto, no doubt after the Native American partner of the Lone Ranger (there’s that word lone again). That same Tonto who fondly calls the Lone Ranger kemosabe (“faithful friend”). But Smith’s faith is uncertain, never clarified and by the end, even he is not sure what he believes, or if faith has transmogrified into fear.
When I think back on reading The Loney, I realise that, consciously or unconsciously, it is a book of dualities. Two very different houses, Moorings and Thessaly, separated by a dangerous stretch of coastline only passable at certain tides, and unpredictably so it seems. Separated, too, by their outlooks: on the surface, both faded, unwelcoming and alien, but the surprise comes with the revelation of which house breeds the strongest faith and which is filled with sickness.
Then there are the two boys, Smith and Hanny, opposites in some ways but who have a communication only they truly understand. There are the two priests, Father Wilfred, recently passed away, and Father Bernard, different aspects of Catholicism, the old and the new. And finally there is the competition of creeds which becomes the central brooding duality of the book.
Comparisons have been drawn between Hurley’s novel and The Wicker Man. I can see why that is, but I think it’s also slightly misleading. To me, the horror of The Wicker Man has always been that sense of finality and utter hopelessness in its denouement. It’s shockingly, brutally clear what befalls Howie in the climax to the film: we watch, horrified, in no doubt as to his fate, at least on Earth if not in the hereafter. With The Loney, things are a little different and left more vague; it’s a gnawing, questioning vagueness that one gets in the most oblique supernatural fiction. I’m still not certain, after quite a bit of reflection, what exactly happens in the concluding sections of this book and in my view that is a major triumph of the story. It’s the hidden spaces and the places in between that haunt this story, and raise doubts about what did happen to Hanny–and to the narrator–and what is to come after the last words of the novel end and only the blank page is left.
What I loved about The Loney is that it struck me as the kind of book Robert Aickman might have written if his strange stories had expanded into strange novels. Yes, it’s more narratively linear and “filled out” than Aickman’s work, and probably Hurley’s portrayal of the novel’s human characters as distinct from the landscape is less contemptuous and alien than some of Aickman’s but there is a real question at the end of this book as to what the horror actually was, or is, and what we are meant to take from it. And that strikes me as remarkably Aickmanesque in tone, and therefore as a very good thing indeed.
The Loney is highly recommended for those who like articulate, striking work that challenges after the fact and lingers in the memory. It’s one of the most convincing pieces of modern supernatural fiction I’ve read in a long time.
The Loney is Andrew Michael Hurley’s first novel, after two collections of short stories (The Unusual Death of Julie Christie and Cages And Other Stories). As usual for Tartarus Press, the book is sumptuously presented, the oblique miniature on the dustjacket giving nothing away about the novel’s contents but nonetheless setting the tone at just the right pitch right from the outset: a haunting, blurred landscape sliced through by a menacing swathe of trees; in the background stands the shadow of an old house; this glimpse no more than a far-off echo perhaps of the titular stretch of brooding coastline which although unspoken is one of the novel’s main protagonists.
On the surface, the book is the story of the narrator Smith (does he have a first name? Smith seems such an everyman surname…) and his mentally disabled brother Andrew, or Hanny as Smith calls him. They gather with family and acquaintances for a pilgrimage to a noted Catholic shrine in a remote coastal area of Lancashire. It is the story of a transformation, of transfiguration and of the place faith has in their lives and the lives of the others around the boys. There is resolution of a sort, but the genesis of the miracle is terrifyingly uncertain and what will come later, after we read the final pages of the book, is frighteningly unclear.
The book also seems to me to be about loneliness and isolation. The Loney: shades of alone and lonely, even though the word might at first seem a playful, harmless, even childish name for a stretch of countryside. It’s obvious as the book progresses that the Loney is unwelcoming and unforgiving. Hurley handles the effect of the landscape well and his narrative is allowed to unfurl at a pace which is perfectly suited to the story’s various minor and major revelations and which never feels hurried. The Loney as a place is ominously present throughout, even if not everything in the story occurs there. There is a highly convincing, pervasive atmosphere of uncomfortable dampness and otherness; a half-remembered feeling of the 1970s before the advent of a technology that allows nowhere to be forgotten or abandoned any longer.
Aside from the painterly skill with which he depicts the growing sense of unease and unreality in that forgotten landscape, it’s also noteworthy how the author reproduces the dialogue in the novel. The interaction of the dysfunctional main characters, all tied together by their devout Roman Catholicism and a strict over-reliance on its rituals and structure in the wake of the death of their former parish priest, is masterful. These people have little else in common but their faith, or what they perceive as faith; but without it, everything else is lost and relationships crumble. The scenes where the characters converse, particularly the narrator and Father Bernard, are remarkably credible and fluid. I was there with them, eavesdropping, uncomfortable and uncertain; and also afraid.
What is also critical in the protagonists’ lives and in the story proper is the part played by faith, even if it’s obvious by the end that such faith takes many forms, not all of them a matter of personal choice. I suspect that Hurley was brought up with Roman Catholicism: the detail of this in the novel is so authentic and convincing that I’d be surprised it he hadn’t been. Having had the same upbringing, I found the novel all the more realistic for the verisimilitude of religious detail – and, by its end, that authenticity makes things quite horrific.
Father Bernard calls Smith by a nickname: Tonto, no doubt after the Native American partner of the Lone Ranger (there’s that word lone again). That same Tonto who fondly calls the Lone Ranger kemosabe (“faithful friend”). But Smith’s faith is uncertain, never clarified and by the end, even he is not sure what he believes, or if faith has transmogrified into fear.
When I think back on reading The Loney, I realise that, consciously or unconsciously, it is a book of dualities. Two very different houses, Moorings and Thessaly, separated by a dangerous stretch of coastline only passable at certain tides, and unpredictably so it seems. Separated, too, by their outlooks: on the surface, both faded, unwelcoming and alien, but the surprise comes with the revelation of which house breeds the strongest faith and which is filled with sickness.
Then there are the two boys, Smith and Hanny, opposites in some ways but who have a communication only they truly understand. There are the two priests, Father Wilfred, recently passed away, and Father Bernard, different aspects of Catholicism, the old and the new. And finally there is the competition of creeds which becomes the central brooding duality of the book.
Comparisons have been drawn between Hurley’s novel and The Wicker Man. I can see why that is, but I think it’s also slightly misleading. To me, the horror of The Wicker Man has always been that sense of finality and utter hopelessness in its denouement. It’s shockingly, brutally clear what befalls Howie in the climax to the film: we watch, horrified, in no doubt as to his fate, at least on Earth if not in the hereafter. With The Loney, things are a little different and left more vague; it’s a gnawing, questioning vagueness that one gets in the most oblique supernatural fiction. I’m still not certain, after quite a bit of reflection, what exactly happens in the concluding sections of this book and in my view that is a major triumph of the story. It’s the hidden spaces and the places in between that haunt this story, and raise doubts about what did happen to Hanny–and to the narrator–and what is to come after the last words of the novel end and only the blank page is left.
What I loved about The Loney is that it struck me as the kind of book Robert Aickman might have written if his strange stories had expanded into strange novels. Yes, it’s more narratively linear and “filled out” than Aickman’s work, and probably Hurley’s portrayal of the novel’s human characters as distinct from the landscape is less contemptuous and alien than some of Aickman’s but there is a real question at the end of this book as to what the horror actually was, or is, and what we are meant to take from it. And that strikes me as remarkably Aickmanesque in tone, and therefore as a very good thing indeed.
The Loney is highly recommended for those who like articulate, striking work that challenges after the fact and lingers in the memory. It’s one of the most convincing pieces of modern supernatural fiction I’ve read in a long time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2016
A very devout Catholic family travel with their priest, and some fellow members of their church, to the Loney – a wild stretch of the Lancashire coast. They’re hoping to pray for the health of one of the sons - a mute, slightly retarded boy called Hanney. The narrator of the story is Hanney’s brother, Smith. They stay at a run down, creepy old house called The Moorings.
The house is immediately full of tensions. Smith and Hanney’s mother doesn’t particularly approve of the new priest. Some of the party never wanted to come to Lancashire in the first place, and they’re quick to find fault with everything. The whole house is out-of-sorts and grumpy, made worse by the fact that it never stops raining. But the tension spreads beyond the house to the surrounding area. There is a strange girl in a wheelchair, who might be pregnant, and who might be a prisoner. There are grim, ritualistic symbols in the woods. Strange artifacts are found in the house. The locals are menacing. There’s a touch of the Whicker man about this book.
Throughout the novel, there is a juxtaposition between the organized religion of the catholic visitors and their accompanying priest and the much older faith – the pagan faith, that is subdued but still very much in evidence in the area.
Like the best Gothic novels, ultimately the story sits in a sort of limbo between the supernatural and the strange. We’re not sure whether something paranormal has actually happened, or whether the characters are over-wrought and hysterical.
The house is immediately full of tensions. Smith and Hanney’s mother doesn’t particularly approve of the new priest. Some of the party never wanted to come to Lancashire in the first place, and they’re quick to find fault with everything. The whole house is out-of-sorts and grumpy, made worse by the fact that it never stops raining. But the tension spreads beyond the house to the surrounding area. There is a strange girl in a wheelchair, who might be pregnant, and who might be a prisoner. There are grim, ritualistic symbols in the woods. Strange artifacts are found in the house. The locals are menacing. There’s a touch of the Whicker man about this book.
Throughout the novel, there is a juxtaposition between the organized religion of the catholic visitors and their accompanying priest and the much older faith – the pagan faith, that is subdued but still very much in evidence in the area.
Like the best Gothic novels, ultimately the story sits in a sort of limbo between the supernatural and the strange. We’re not sure whether something paranormal has actually happened, or whether the characters are over-wrought and hysterical.
January 4, 2015
Well, what a brilliant book. Almost perfect. The protagonist is a young boy forced to endure the eccentric yearly pilgrimage of his orthodox Catholic parents as they seek God's cure for their mentally disabled son, the protagonist's elder brother. Except that the site of this pilgrimage, the eponymous Loney, a barren stretch of the Lancastrian coast, is bleak and forbidding, populated by menacing locals and steeped in sinister folklore. A palpable sense of unease and dread runs throughout the book, as the real horror of religious mania competes with the secondary theme of a lingering supernatural menace. I read it in an isolated wood cabin, accompanied by eerie nocturnal creaks and bumps, and it was an uncomfortable, but extremely enjoyable experience. It's going to take something special for this not to be my book of the year, even though it's only January.
April 2, 2016
"The Loney" by Andrew Michael Hurley has been marketed as a gothic masterpiece, and it has been predicted to become a classic. Being a huge fan of gothic novels myself, I was naturally very interested to get my hands on it and read it. I now have and I'm pleased to say that this book creeped me out and fascinated me simultaneously.
What comes to mind the most is the impeccable setting. Everything in this book is gloomy, gray and sinister, and I loved it. You felt like you were standing in front of this desolate landscape of Loney yourself, but at no point did it become too scary or too gloomy, in my opinion. Furthermore, I felt like this book was kind of a psychological thriller which also very much appealed to me.
That being said, this novel also comes with a lot of religion, and while I didn't mind that, I didn't relate much to it either. Religion is a focal point to all characters in this story and it's an important part of what they say and do, but it is mingled with a mysterious atmosphere where you get a lot of foreshadowing but no real answers (until the very end).
I loved this a lot, and I definitely see why so many people find it fascinating. Andrew Michael Hurley knows his craft when it comes to gothic literature, and I'm definitely recommending this to all gothic fans out there.
What comes to mind the most is the impeccable setting. Everything in this book is gloomy, gray and sinister, and I loved it. You felt like you were standing in front of this desolate landscape of Loney yourself, but at no point did it become too scary or too gloomy, in my opinion. Furthermore, I felt like this book was kind of a psychological thriller which also very much appealed to me.
That being said, this novel also comes with a lot of religion, and while I didn't mind that, I didn't relate much to it either. Religion is a focal point to all characters in this story and it's an important part of what they say and do, but it is mingled with a mysterious atmosphere where you get a lot of foreshadowing but no real answers (until the very end).
I loved this a lot, and I definitely see why so many people find it fascinating. Andrew Michael Hurley knows his craft when it comes to gothic literature, and I'm definitely recommending this to all gothic fans out there.
September 28, 2016
This book wasn't really for me.
In a nutshell it's about a young lad whose Mother thinks that her religious beliefs and devotion will cure his brother who is unable to speak. The story mainly focuses on a particular pilgrimage (there have been many) they make with their church group to a shrine on the English coast.
Full marks for atmosphere and chill factor - you can feel the rain on your skin and the desolation in your heart.
Unfortunately I didn't really want to feel those things and the religious musings became rather tiresome.
I did finish this but it was hard going and I was very bored towards the end.
In a nutshell it's about a young lad whose Mother thinks that her religious beliefs and devotion will cure his brother who is unable to speak. The story mainly focuses on a particular pilgrimage (there have been many) they make with their church group to a shrine on the English coast.
Full marks for atmosphere and chill factor - you can feel the rain on your skin and the desolation in your heart.
Unfortunately I didn't really want to feel those things and the religious musings became rather tiresome.
I did finish this but it was hard going and I was very bored towards the end.
October 21, 2014
The Loney is a lovely book, in its prose and its plotting and its primary characters and even its darkness, which is dished out slowly and carefully, only truly bubbling to the surface in three or four scenes—though two of those are dark enough to catch on the tongue. At its core, it is a Coming of Age novel, one told in retrospect by the now-adult narrator remembering back to two key points in his life: a specific Easter holiday pilgrimage and his time as an altar boy, events which intertwine in theme and side-elements of plot. Hurley writes his protagonist—or you might say, has his protagonist write of himself—in much the way that any of us would look back at our teenage'd self: innocent but with hindsight that may not have been possible at the time. This leads to a dual-faced book, on one-hand about the very real horror right behind the wall of events and on the other about the way a person raised in a close-faith household deals with issues such as a brother with with unspecified mental disabilities or a mother coming to terms with a new priest or secrets you keep to protect the miracle that made your family feel whole.
The core plotline is a trip to Moorings, a house in Lancashire, near a fairly desolate but occasionally lovely beach known as The Loney. The church group had taken annual trips with the aged Father Wilfred, their chief goal being a visit to a local shrine said to have healing powers so that Hanny, Smith's brother, can be cured of his afflictions. For Esther, Smith's mom, generally described as "Mummy" in the book, the curing of Hanny—and the eventual priesthood of Smith—are her two primary goals, above and outside the wishes of either of her sons. As children, Smith and Hanny find the place to be both boring but yet a blast, playing games on The Loney and seeing mostly the world as a toybox. One year, after Father Wilfred goes off on his own and comes back a changed man for reasons [not specified until later in the novel], the annual trips cease, a sense of darkness coloring them.
After Wilfred's death, a new priest comes in, Father Bernard, trying to find some fresh passion in the Church, and a chance for a pilgrimage is possible again, though things have changed. The Loney and the woods nearby seem darker, more ragged. Moorings is found to have a secret room used for unknown purposes. The locals are less friendly and things which could be pranks and could be something sinister occur. And the personal interaction of the group has been tainted. Esther finds Father Bernard a weak leader, someone unable to lead them on the perfect trip to cure her son. A young couple has joined to trip who do not quite flow along with the rest. An old couple, Father Wilfred's brother and sister-in-law, are still dealing with grief from losing kin. Perhaps worst of all, Hanny is growing into a man, larger and more unwieldy, still devoted to his brother but more and more at odds with his mother's machinations to cure him no matter what the cost.
By comparison, the flashbacks to the days as an altar-boy are tamer, mostly the last look at a Father Wilfred who has become different, passionate about the Church but darker with it, taking out his Dickensian Schoolmaster zeal on another young altar-boy, who tries but fails to live up to the standards set.
Things unravel more and more as Smith and Hanny become acquainted with a couple living in the old house Thessaly, across tidal paths from The Loney in Coldbarrow, and with a young ward, about their Hanny's own age, pregnant and beautiful. Something horrible is going on, the reader—and the adult Smith—knows, but the younger Smith and Hanny can only guess. A miracle is coming, and Father Wilfred's damnation is exposed, and Smith finds himself holding both secrets, lonely and cold, the younger brother who acted the older to the end. Tainted by knowing the cost of the affirmation, and never quite able to be whole, again.
It has been compared, by the publisher, to The Wicker Man, and that is only partially right. The handling of secrets is different between here and there, and the way it handles its new but old source of miracles. The Wicker Man is mostly one man's failure to see the truth, The Loney is a young boy's, and later a middle-aged man's, inability to handle it. In the end, The Loney is about a cost in a way that Wicker is not.
As I started out saying, this is a lovely book, darkness and all, but not one which is pulse pounding. The secrets are dark, one darker than the other, but the full shape of darkness does not come until the end, and it comes with the suggestion that we're all children playing at games of faith, while the world is unknowable.
The core plotline is a trip to Moorings, a house in Lancashire, near a fairly desolate but occasionally lovely beach known as The Loney. The church group had taken annual trips with the aged Father Wilfred, their chief goal being a visit to a local shrine said to have healing powers so that Hanny, Smith's brother, can be cured of his afflictions. For Esther, Smith's mom, generally described as "Mummy" in the book, the curing of Hanny—and the eventual priesthood of Smith—are her two primary goals, above and outside the wishes of either of her sons. As children, Smith and Hanny find the place to be both boring but yet a blast, playing games on The Loney and seeing mostly the world as a toybox. One year, after Father Wilfred goes off on his own and comes back a changed man for reasons [not specified until later in the novel], the annual trips cease, a sense of darkness coloring them.
After Wilfred's death, a new priest comes in, Father Bernard, trying to find some fresh passion in the Church, and a chance for a pilgrimage is possible again, though things have changed. The Loney and the woods nearby seem darker, more ragged. Moorings is found to have a secret room used for unknown purposes. The locals are less friendly and things which could be pranks and could be something sinister occur. And the personal interaction of the group has been tainted. Esther finds Father Bernard a weak leader, someone unable to lead them on the perfect trip to cure her son. A young couple has joined to trip who do not quite flow along with the rest. An old couple, Father Wilfred's brother and sister-in-law, are still dealing with grief from losing kin. Perhaps worst of all, Hanny is growing into a man, larger and more unwieldy, still devoted to his brother but more and more at odds with his mother's machinations to cure him no matter what the cost.
By comparison, the flashbacks to the days as an altar-boy are tamer, mostly the last look at a Father Wilfred who has become different, passionate about the Church but darker with it, taking out his Dickensian Schoolmaster zeal on another young altar-boy, who tries but fails to live up to the standards set.
Things unravel more and more as Smith and Hanny become acquainted with a couple living in the old house Thessaly, across tidal paths from The Loney in Coldbarrow, and with a young ward, about their Hanny's own age, pregnant and beautiful. Something horrible is going on, the reader—and the adult Smith—knows, but the younger Smith and Hanny can only guess. A miracle is coming, and Father Wilfred's damnation is exposed, and Smith finds himself holding both secrets, lonely and cold, the younger brother who acted the older to the end. Tainted by knowing the cost of the affirmation, and never quite able to be whole, again.
It has been compared, by the publisher, to The Wicker Man, and that is only partially right. The handling of secrets is different between here and there, and the way it handles its new but old source of miracles. The Wicker Man is mostly one man's failure to see the truth, The Loney is a young boy's, and later a middle-aged man's, inability to handle it. In the end, The Loney is about a cost in a way that Wicker is not.
As I started out saying, this is a lovely book, darkness and all, but not one which is pulse pounding. The secrets are dark, one darker than the other, but the full shape of darkness does not come until the end, and it comes with the suggestion that we're all children playing at games of faith, while the world is unknowable.
Read
May 21, 2016A rather superior, slow-burning chiller; nicely-handled, subtle, well-written, with some interesting detail and a terrific sense of place. I felt that the pay-off, though satisfyingly opaque, could have been set up a little more gradually, but that's just me being picky, I guess. Blair Witch for bookworms.
October 24, 2016
I like endings that don't spell everything out for you and leave things open for interpretation, but I'm just so confused right now. If you've read this book and have any explanations/ideas/interpretations, please feel free to send me a message!
March 28, 2016
This was, quite easily, the worst book I have ever read in quite some time. How the heck this got published, let alone won an award is beyond me. One star is generous- I really want to give this a negative five at the very least. Why?
Firstly, the plot...or lack thereof. Hate to say it, but even a dictionary has more of a plot than this. 360 pages long, but it actually takes 250 pages for anything meaningful to happen. What 'plot' there was could have been covered in 20-30 pages (I'm being generous here).
There is an issue with genre here too. "A gothic masterpiece" or a "horror." No, this was neither. It teased using horror with rooks; it teased using horror with a body hanging from a tree with a pig's heart; it teased horror with a witches potion, and in the end none of these were used for more than a page or two. There was no horror!
If there's one saving grace though, it is this: writing for a hobby like I do, I've discovered a lot I don't like in a book that I can use for my own writing by not employing it, apart from description of landscape, which was pretty good.
Firstly, the plot...or lack thereof. Hate to say it, but even a dictionary has more of a plot than this. 360 pages long, but it actually takes 250 pages for anything meaningful to happen. What 'plot' there was could have been covered in 20-30 pages (I'm being generous here).
There is an issue with genre here too. "A gothic masterpiece" or a "horror." No, this was neither. It teased using horror with rooks; it teased using horror with a body hanging from a tree with a pig's heart; it teased horror with a witches potion, and in the end none of these were used for more than a page or two. There was no horror!
If there's one saving grace though, it is this: writing for a hobby like I do, I've discovered a lot I don't like in a book that I can use for my own writing by not employing it, apart from description of landscape, which was pretty good.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2018
The Loney is not a monster, as I suppose I expected, but a place: an isolated coastline in the northwest of England that the narrator and his family visited on pilgrimage with their Roman Catholic congregation every Easter in the 1970s. The narrator, only identified by the nickname Tonto, explores their strange rental house – full of taxidermied animals and hidden rooms, it also has a rifle under the floorboards – and goes to the beach with his mute brother Andrew (“Hanny”). Mummer and Farther hold out hope that their son Hanny will be healed on a visit to the local shrine, and Mummer especially is frustrated that Father Bernard isn’t as strict and devout as their previous priest, Father Wilfred, who died under a cloud of suspicion not long before this trip.
Last year at around this time I read Hurley’s follow-up, Devil’s Day, which has a similarly bleak and eerie atmosphere. Both look at rural superstitions as experienced by outsiders. The Loney was more profound for me, though, in how it subverts religious rituals and posits a subtle evil influence without ever disappearing down doctrinal rabbitholes. It asks how far people will go to get what they want, what meaning there is to human life if there is no supernatural being looking out for us, and – through a framing story set 30 or more years later – how guilt and memory persist. I especially loved the Tenebrae service in a gloomy church featuring Bosch-like horrors in its artwork. This reminded me of a less abstract After Me Comes the Flood and a more contemporary The Short Day Dying; I highly recommend it.
Favorite lines:
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Last year at around this time I read Hurley’s follow-up, Devil’s Day, which has a similarly bleak and eerie atmosphere. Both look at rural superstitions as experienced by outsiders. The Loney was more profound for me, though, in how it subverts religious rituals and posits a subtle evil influence without ever disappearing down doctrinal rabbitholes. It asks how far people will go to get what they want, what meaning there is to human life if there is no supernatural being looking out for us, and – through a framing story set 30 or more years later – how guilt and memory persist. I especially loved the Tenebrae service in a gloomy church featuring Bosch-like horrors in its artwork. This reminded me of a less abstract After Me Comes the Flood and a more contemporary The Short Day Dying; I highly recommend it.
Favorite lines:
“The Church of the Sacred Heart was an ancient place – dark and squat and glistening amphibiously in the rain.”
“The wind continued to rise and fall. Whining and shrilling. It was as insistent as the priest, louder sometimes, preaching an older sermon, about the sand and the sea.”
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
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