Book Review: WILD SPACES by S.L. Coney

WILD SPACES by S.L. Coney (Tor.com, August 01, 2023) Paperback, 122 pages. ISBN #9781250866837

Synopsis on the Goodreads website . . . . .

Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life meets H. P. Lovecraft in Wild Spaces, a foreboding, sensual coming-of-age debut in which the corrosive nature of family secrets and toxic relatives assume eldritch proportions.

An eleven-year-old boy lives an idyllic childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and his dog Teach. But when the boy’s eerie and estranged grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain.

The longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the more the boy feels something within him changing —physically—into something his grandfather welcomes and his mother fears. Something abyssal. Something monstrous.

My Three-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

     I recently read a news article in Locus magazine on the 2023 nominees for the Phillip K. Dick Award which focuses on genre fiction originally published in paperback. I picked three of the nominees to read, based on the synopsis which grabbed my attention. I was unfamiliar with S. L. Coney before this. 

     Here's the most important thing to say about this: S.L. Coney is a promising new writer with a lot of potential, and I will most likely seek out whatever they write after WILD SPACES, if only to make up my mind. Perhaps the synopsis and early reviews/blurbs raised my expectations beyond what this quick reading novella could deliver to me. Also, the comparisons to renowned authors like Robert McCammon and H.P. Lovecraft, while somewhat appropriate, also led to expectations that were not met. 

     Page 32: "The sea always rushes in, greedy for the land. His father says that one day -- a bazillion years ago -- a fish grew legs and walked on land for the first time. And as funny as he thinks a fish with legs would look, he wonders how the sea felt when her inhabitants started walking away. He wonders if maybe that's why she keeps eating away at the land, trying to take back what it stole."

     There are several memorable passages like that one. However, if only there were more and I felt a consistent voice throughout the story I might have rated this higher. 

     The foreshadowing in the early chapters allowed me to figure out the ending too early, and that made the emotional moments less heart-breaking or heart-warming for me. 

     But, based on this novella I definitely want to revisit S. L. Coney. If you're looking to discover new promising writers, this short novella may reward you without sacrificing much of your reading time. This could easily be read at one sitting.