Don't let the forest in by CG Drews
Don't let the forest in is a macabre and twisted tale which fits a genre which could be described as queer dark academia /YA thriller. Written by CG Drews, Don't let the forest in, like Drew's 2020 CBCA Honour Book of the Year for Older Readers The Boy who steals houses, traces two broken boys. The question is...Can the boys keep the forest out? and for the reader a further question...is this forest a real physical living forest beyond the walls of the wealthy and elite Wickwood school or is it a forest of imagination descending into madness? Is keeping madness at bay another way of saying 'Don't let the forest in'?
Don't let the forest in leaves an ongoing organic, visceral, rotting, mouldering, throat-catching feeling in the reader. Tendrils, roots and stems springing from monstrous beings penetrate frail young people and the walls of the boarding school buildings with an unstoppable, unassailable power. Andrew and Thomas (the main protagonists) try to fight monstrous creatures that seem to emerge from the very earth and the forest, clutching for the vital organs of humans. Are the boys descending into some kind of shared madness of twisted perception? Is this all the result of trauma where the supernatural becomes entangled with the psyche and the characters grow increasingly lost and bewildered? The reader, consequently, struggles with finding reality. What is real? What happened? The descent into a world of tension and fear exhausts Andrew in particular. Physically and mentally he wastes away. Occasionally counsellors, teachers and other students provide contact with reality. Even the bully Bryce Kane, seems like light relief compared to the psychological warfare that the boys are contending with. Every night Andrew and Thomas leave the walls of the school and venture into the forest. This is forbidden on pain of suspension because something terrible has happened in the forest previously - something unmentionable.
The central characters have complex inner lives and motivations. There is much psychological intricacy within and between them for the reader to try to understand. Thomas Rye is wild and damaged. His parents have been killed or have they...and who did it? Andrew is gentle, delicate and broken. He has a twin sister Dove...' glittering ice, beautiful and dangerous and impossible to reshape'...'while Andrew was more like a collection of skeleton leaves, fragile and crumbling.' The central focus is the growing and dangerous obsession between the two boys. Andrew writes the twisted fairy tales and Thomas illustrates them. Are the stories coming to life? What must be destroyed? What has already been destroyed? Drew's depiction of coming of age and queer sexuality is perceptive and naturally contextual. As in all good psychological thrillers, the reader develops questions about the characters; about their past, their beliefs,who they really are and what they are capable of.
Tension is built where snatches of the past are interwoven with the present. The plot is complex and the storyline is unpredictable as the reader travels with the boys into their dark, twisted world where they become more and more socially withdrawn and unmoored from reality. Suspicions, projections and disorientation increase especially for Andrew who on the surface develops panic attacks and is labelled with an anxiety disorder. The toilet scene is just one of many that illustrate overwhelming fear. Drews draws out the interiority of character and through foreshadowing, withholding, misdirecting, revealing and twisting, the reader, with an increasing sense of impending doom, is led through chaotic and grisly physical and psychological horror. Having to view the action through the cracked filters of our protagonists leaves the reader grasping for sanity. To stop the monsters the fear is that something has to be destroyed.
The setting evokes memories of fairy tales where the forests become sinister players, of Lanny by Max Porter where Dead Papa Toothwort, the all-knowing ancient spirit stirs in hedgerows. Don't let the forest in is written, like these stories, with an eco-psychological perspective. The mental and social impact of Wickwood school and the forest beyond its walls is crucial to the story. Being a campus novel too, it is reminiscent of novels such as Donna Tartt's The Secret History in its depiction of the cloistered hothouse world of elite boarding schools/frat houses.
Black and white droplets (suggestive of blood) are scattered throughout the book, along with some full page gruesome illustrations. At regular intervals Andrew's stories are reproduced in spidery writing on a grey background. These are very hard to read and in future editions it would be nice if this could be rectified.
Don't let the forest in is not a nice story with a happy ending. It's a dark, horrible thriller but compulsive reading and if you don't mind feeling haunted then it is recommended.
Themes: Queer, Obsession, Privilege, Boarding school, Twisted fairy tales, Monsters, Mental illness, Art.
Wendy Jeffrey