The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister brings the lesser-known “Appalachian Gothic” subgenre to readers looking for their next chilling tale to devour. The novel follows the lives of the Haddesley siblings of West Virginia after their father dies and the truths they thought they knew about their family start to unravel.
From the start, the novel establishes that the Haddesley family is strange even as far as recluses go. The family believes they have an ancient, mystical pact with the bog their ancestral home sits on.
In exchange for caring for the bog, the land provides each Haddesley patriarch a “bog wife,” which is disturbingly exactly as it sounds – a woman born of the bog who bears Haddesley children.
Alternating between the five different perspectives of siblings Eda, Charlie, Wenna, Percy, and Nora, the truth about their family’s relationship with the bog is revealed. While using five different narrators sounds like it’s stretching the story too thin, Chronister manages to write each Haddesley sibling as their own fully-developed person.
Wenna, who returns home after ten years to help bury their father, seems like the natural protagonist having escaped the family and providing an outsider’s perspective. You feel bad for her as she’s sucked back into her family’s drama because who wouldn’t want to escape such madness?
However, the other siblings are equally interesting. Percy is filled with anger at his perceived slight as the youngest son, Nora is desperate to fill a loneliness she doesn’t understand, and the would-be replacement patriarch Charlie struggles emotionally and physically under the weight of his duties.
Even the high-strung eldest daughter Eda eventually manages to garner the reader’s empathy as arguably the most tragic of the children in her desperate attempt to save the family.
What elevates The Bog Wife from an interesting concept to a fully-formed world is Chronister’s rich descriptions of the Haddesley family home and surrounding land. You’ll feel completely immersed in the land and its powerful hold on the family whether or not you’ve ever even seen what a bog looks like in real life.
The book is truly Gothic as it never veers into anything that scary, instead relying on the oppressive and haunting atmosphere to keep readers holding their breath. The realities of the Haddesley’s living conditions, surviving in a crumbling home trying to live off a land that is rejecting them, are upsetting enough without any jump scares or bogeymen.
Chronister also cleverly sews suspicion throughout the events, leaving the reader questioning as much as the siblings themselves whether the ill-omened happenings are supernatural or something much more mundane. Regardless of which way you lean while reading you’ll be equally disturbed by how the Haddesley siblings have been poisoned by their upbringing to reach such severe desperation and delusion
The Bog Wife is as much about toxic family systems and how hard it is to break free of them as it is about the potentially supernatural stirrings in the background. The mythology of the family is far more complex and dangerous than the vaguely Celtic mythology the family relies on for their traditions and rituals.
Fortunately, readers do get an explanation for the Haddesley family’s history by the end so you won’t feel frustrated by unanswered questions or loose ends.
Despite the dark turns of the story, the ending is a hopeful message about adapting without losing yourself completely. Regardless of how “normal” one may feel compared to the Haddesleys, the story of this family will resonate with readers.
The Bog Wife is available now wherever you buy books.
