At the Edge of the Woods

by Masatsugu Ono

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Pub Date Apr 12 2022 | Archive Date Apr 18 2022

Description

“Balances wonder and disquiet with incomparable grace and precision…Ono continues to captivate.” —Bryan Washington, author of Memorial

In an unnamed foreign country, a family of three is settling into a house at the edge of the woods. But something is off. A sound, at first like coughing and then like laughter, emanates from the nearby forest. Fantastical creatures, it is said, live out there in a castle where feudal lords reigned and Resistance fighters fell. When the mother, fearing another miscarriage, returns to her family’s home to give birth to a second child, father and son are left to their own devices in rural isolation. Haunted by the ever-present woods, they look on as the TV flashes with floods and processions of refugees. The boy brings a mysterious half-naked old woman home, but before the father can make sense of her presence, she disappears. A mail carrier with gnashing teeth visits to deliver nothing but gossip of violence. A tree stump in the yard refuses to die, no matter how generously the poison is applied.

An allegory for alienation and climate catastrophe unlike any other, At the Edge of the Woods is a psychological tale where myth and fantasy are not the dominion of childhood innocence but the poison fruit borne of the paranoia and violence of contemporary life.

“Balances wonder and disquiet with incomparable grace and precision…Ono continues to captivate.” —Bryan Washington, author of Memorial

In an unnamed foreign country, a family of three is settling into...

Advance Praise

“Ono’s immersive narrative accrues insights about the nature of violence and mercy… an accomplished work by a masterful writer.” —Publishers Weekly

“An eerie allegory of climate apocalypse and unnatural nature…full of dark laughter, figures that appear and disappear, sounds of violence and gnashing teeth.” —The Millions (Most Anticipated 2022)

“A surreal tale of a world torn apart by disaster…Written in startling, imaginative vignettes, At the Edge of the Woods is an evocative terrifying story about a family’s efforts to survive a crisis.” —Rebecca Hussey, Foreword Reviews

“At the Edge of the Woods balances wonder and disquiet with incomparable grace and precision; in this novel about a family navigating their unsteady future, Masatsugu Ono illustrates modern life’s horrors alongside the wonder of the unknown. Ono is one of our great chroniclers of love, with all of its possibility and dread, and the worlds this novel inhabits are both unsettling and awe-inspiring. At the Edge of the Woods is beautiful and seductive. Ono continues to captivate.” —Bryan Washington, author of Memorial

“Like stumbling through a nightmare, Ono’s latest novel At the Edge of the Woods masterfully captures the paranoia, confusion, and alienation of modern life. A strange unceasing cough from the tree line, a mysterious old woman who appears only to immediately disappear, and a protagonist trying to make sense of a reality that increasingly makes less and less sense. If you like your novels weird, haunting, and filled with sharp, spare prose—you’ll find a lot to love in Ono’s latest excellent book.” —Caleb Master, Bookmarks NC (Winston-Salem, NC)

“Ono stealthily darkens the lives of a family who recently moved to a foreign country. They live in a house at the edge of a forest. The few locals they meet tell frightening stories about the woods. When the wife becomes pregnant, she returns home to have the baby in a safer setting. Left alone, father and son turn inward and become unable to have a conversation, much less draw comfort from each other. Fear and isolation give way to paranoia, then loss of touch with reality. This is a perfect book for readers of psychological horror.” —Kay Wosewick, Boswell Book Company, (Milwaukee, WI)

“Ono’s immersive narrative accrues insights about the nature of violence and mercy… an accomplished work by a masterful writer.” —Publishers Weekly

“An eerie allegory of climate apocalypse and...