The Darkest Part of the Woods Ramsey Campbell

The Darkest Part of the Woods

First Published 2002
350 Pages
Date Read
July 2002
Lesley

Heather and her family have lived in Goodmanswood for many year, ever since Heather, and her sister Sylvia, were children. Their father, Lennox, originally came to Goodmanswood to investigate the delusions being experienced by some of the villagers but unfortunately ended up apparently becoming a victim of the same condition.

Sylvia had left the family home to become a writer/researcher in the US but suddenly found herself drawn to return back to Goodmanswood to live with the family again. Suddenly local children start to see apparitions in the nearby woods and Heather's father is repeatedly found standing in the middle of the same woods at the edge of a mysterious brick circle.

When her father suddenly commits suicide Heather is forced to face up to the fact that something mysterious is happening and her family is at risk.

Darkest Part of the Woods is a classic Ramsey Campbell horror story, subtle and beautifully written. It is fair to say that for a large part of the story, nothing happens. However, rather than making the book tedious it actually increases the feelings of suspense. The whole style would have been ruined if the author had resorted to the shock tactics employed by many other proponents of the genre. Although the reader gets a vague inkling of some of the future twists and turns of the storyline at no point could it ever be referred to as predictable.

This tale is a must for lovers of understated, yet very eerie, horror/suspense.

The edition I was lucky enough to read was produced by PS Publishing, with an introduction by Peter Straub. It's a glorious hardback, beautifully bound with a dark green cover and gold spine lettering. The layout of the pages are well spaced making the story extremely easy to read. Often I find it difficult to handle hardback books as they are too tightly bound with the text too close to the central spine (I cannot abide damaging books by cracking the spine when reading them) but with "Darkest Part" the binding lends itself to being read. Add a dust jacket with artwork by Edward Miller and you have a quality publication.

Fabulous!

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Synopsis
The yielding of the forest floor reminded him of flesh. He needn't imagine that they were walking over a face the size of the woods, a flattened face that was holding its breath while they approached its mouth...

There have always been tales about the Severn Valley village of Goodmanswood -- tales of ghosts and less familiar things. In the sixties Lennox Price travelled from America to investigate their source, only to succumb to some part of it. Forty years later its growing power has taken hold of his wife Margo, their daughter Sylvia and grandson Sam. Only Heather, Sam's mother, appears able to resist it, but she cannot begin to imagine how vast and terrible it is, nor what form it is about to take. Before the end she will have to confront it and all the secrets her family conceals.

This is Ramsey Campbell's first supernatural novel since the award-winning Nazareth Hill. The author says "I believe The Darkest Part of the Woods does more that I would like a supernatural book of mine to achieve than any of my other novels."