Recommendation: What They Find In The Woods by Gary Fry

Gary Fry's latest novella is released by Dark Minds Press today. Jammy sod that I am, I had the pleasure of reading What They Find In The Woods before its release. I've always liked Fry's work, so it wasn't hard to write some fulsome praise for a cover blurb; what I sent to Dark Minds after reading it was:

“Gary Fry’s What They Find In The Woods is a compelling, erudite and genuinely scary tale that combines deep-rooted folk horror with contemporary concerns. Subtle, clever, yet terrifying in its implications, it’s Fry at the top of his game. It might just be his best work yet.”

But here's a thing. Since writing those words, it's come to my attention that not everything in What They Find In The Woods is necessarily strictly fictional. Gary has posed a number of items on his Facebook page where the central character of the story, Donald Deere, is referenced in academic text books (Gary Fry is an academic himself) about working-class folklore and myths. He's also posted this video, about the story and some of the characters–should that be 'characters'?– in it. Make of it what you will.

It's all slightly unsettling, particularly coming after I'd read the story itself–it's like reality has retrofitted itself to Fry's creation, not the other way around. Odd. (I've had my own brush with fictional worlds and reality seeming to coexist, as those who've read the afterword to The Shelter and this post will know.)

Anyway, the novella is very good and you should buy it. Definitely. It's just... I'm not normally affected by these things, you know, but the stuff Gary has posted is very odd. Definitely buy it. But yeah... odd.

What They Find In The Woods (UK | US)