BOOK REVIEW | THE DWIMFOLK | JAMES BROGDEN

BOOK REVIEW | THE DWIMFOLK | JAMES BROGDEN

ABOUT THIS BOOK

"They are, as far as I can tell, unfixed beings—changeable, shaped by the thoughts or feelings of people who live close to thin places like the Trod, and the way that we can make fixed forms. We take ore and heat it and hammer it and all of a sudden it’s a gold ring. We take the sounds of our mouths and write them down and fix them on paper and all of a sudden we have stories. I don’t think they can make anything new for themselves, but they’ll come like moths to a flame when they’re offered something beautifully made.

All this time I’ve been thinking that they’re the ones with the magic, but what if it’s the other way around? What if, from their perspective, we are gods and djinns because of what we can conjure out of our imaginations with our hands? And in that case, what do you have to make to bring out something huge like the Greenfather? How clever? Or beautiful? Or terrible? How do you awe a god?”

REVIEW

August Derleth nominee James Brogden presents this dark fantasy set deep in the English countryside.

Published by PS Publishing, the book tells the story of Wren, an outsider whose mother is regarded as a witch.

Taking a job as a replacement teacher in the village of Wooley Edge, Lisa Bradshaw comes across the strange child, who likes to come into lessons for story time, but promptly disappears before she can interact with him.

Living on the outskirts of the village community, loner Wren spends most of his time foraging around the local woods.

What no one knows is that deep in the woods is the gateway to another world. The deep Trod, where the Greenfather and his minions live.

With inklings of Alan Garner and Keith Waterhouse, The Dwimfolk is a coming of age tale that mixes British folklore, dark fantasy and elements of folk horror.

For most of the novella, the fae folk stay on the edge of the story remaining as ephemeral as the fae themselves and for the most part the characters deal with mostly human problems, such as navigating the transition from child to teenager, or changing friendships.

However, when the supernatural elements kick in, the action kicks in.

Unfortunately, the end comes rather too quickly and it could have done with been just that little bit longer just to give that more satisfying culmination.

Leaving the story on a cliffhanger, it will be interesting to see how this tale develops.