Maud isn’t a particularly likeable character, but she is pitiable, trapped as she is in a darkness she must fight alone. I also enjoyed the creeping madness displayed in Maud’s father’s notebooks, and the uncertainty of what was real and what was imagined. I enjoyed the blurring of superstition and sense, demons and religion. The fens can be enjoyed by those that are careful and learn the paths, but the danger of the fens to those that are ignorant mirrors the danger of dark secrets which are buried and ignored. The fens are wild and loved by Maud, but despised by her father. The setting is an incredibly important and powerful part of the story.
However, the duel narrative of Wakenhyrst is interesting and effective due to the emotional distance between the third-person narration and Maud she isn’t self-aware enough to have been an adequate narrator. While there is plenty of building tension and suspense in Wakenhyrst, I felt it wasn’t quite as thrilling as Paver’s previous stories which used first person narration throughout. Maud slowly becomes aware that she needs help that her father could be dangerous, but with only superstitious household staff and a visiting doctor that cannot be trusted, Maud is completely alone.
Maud’s innocence and naivety cannot at first make sense of what she is reading. Maud secretly reads these notebooks, becoming aware of her father’s dark thoughts and hints of a terrible secret. The narrative switches between third-person focusing on Maud, and her father’s personal notebooks. The story is dark and thrilling, slowly unravelling, with the past coming back to haunt Maud and her father. Maud, a lonely, motherless child must battle the demons of her father’s mind and past. In Edwardian Suffolk, near the village of Wakenhyrst, a manor house sits alone surrounded by the wild fens.
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