Back in December, my sister was in a production of A Christmas Carol. She lives about three hours away, so my mom and I drove up together every weekend to catch as many showings as we can. We often listen to audiobooks together, but between the road trip weekends and the insanity that is Christmas season in retail I’d been exhausted. On at least one of the trips, I slept while she drove and listened to her next book club book, which was These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant. I drifted in and out of sleep, so I heard a few scenes wildly out of context (including, unfortunately, the epilogue). What I heard sounded interesting and my mom enjoyed the book so later, on my own time and fully awake, I listened to it for myself.
What’s it about?
Cooper and his young daughter Finch are living off the land in a cabin deep in the woods. Those aren’t their real names, and they’re as much hiding as living in the middle of nowhere; years ago, Cooper did something bad enough that he had to flee with Finch and change their names lest his past come back to bite him and take Finch away from him. After several years of relative peace—occasional visits from their odd and unsettling neighbor Scotland notwithstanding—things start to go wrong, throwing new people into their small world and threatening the closed but safe life Cooper built for them.
How’s the narration?
These Silent Woods has two narrators. Bronson Pinchot, reading as Cooper, does the vast majority of the novel, with Stephanie Willis taking the sole chapter that is not from Cooper’s first person perspective. Both narrators do a good job: engaging but calm, just what the story needs. This novel is sort of a thriller, but it’s mostly about the careful atmosphere that Cooper creates, and Pinchot creates that with his voice.
What’d I think?
I have slightly mixed feelings about These Silent Woods, and it’s all due to the end. There’s the slightest disconnect between the setup and the payoff, and even though I could kind of see the end coming I still found it a little underwhelming.
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