The Loney was a perfect read during the time when a chill in the air catches your breath, pumpkins and all sorts of witchy goodies are on sale in the supermarket and you feel the sudden urge to watch a horror film. If you haven’t got this book already, go out and get it.
Have you ever noticed that the outline at the Britain looks like a witch riding a pig? Next time you look at a map take a closer look. The Loney is set in a strange netherworld right on the witch’s throat or as Andrew Michael Hurley describes it a “strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune”.
The opening pages are ode to this desolate and unforgiving landscape. A place where “unlucky fishermen” drown and wash up later, “with green faces and skin like lint”.
There is something in the language of the coast that sounds foreign, poetic and in some cases eerie. Hurley uses this treasure trove to his advantage. The prose is packed full of words like – “scrimshaw”, “tundra”,” boggart” or “causeway”. Even the names of birds sound unsettling – “curlews” “jackdaws” or “gull”.
The tale recounts memories of an annual Pilgrimage made by a London parish of St Jude to this area of Lancashire.
When mixed with themes of Catholic faith and damnation, this fictional debut opens a dark cavernous space where the tide of imagination can flow into. A description of a painting of Hell in a village church on page 136 is counted among the passages that I will later revisit.
The plot is simple. It is Hurley’s writing style that builds the tension expertly, until you turn a page and a jolt of fear forces you to put the book down and put something funny on the telly.
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