“Blessed is the beast that knows its purpose.”



Initial response to my Wood – notwithstanding the expected witticisms regarding the title – has been tremendously positive … if a bit puzzling.

* * *

“Mesmerizing … poetic … unnerving.”
~ Literary Mayhem

“Honest-to-God terrifying and emotionally wrenching.”
~ Horror World

“Leaves an indelible impression on the reader’s heart and mind.”
~ Southern Rose Productions

“If you have not yet read anything by Robert Dunbar, you are doing yourself a disservice. WOOD is his latest dark literary masterpiece.”
~ Famous Monsters of Filmland

“Another excellent work from an extremely powerful writer.”
~ The Black Abyss

“A tale of the unexpected written in wonderful prose … flows with an eerie pace.”
~ More-2-Read

“Beautifully crafted. Reads like a bad dream experienced during a feverish night.”
~ The Tomb of Dark Delights

“Deeply disturbing. Horror as it should be.”
~ To-the-Bone Reviews


* * *

See? Nothing to complain about here. Still … I’m perplexed.

Few of the critics have mentioned the humor in the piece, though the Horror World reviewer did find the climax to be “wickedly funny.” (Personally, I thought the ending was dead serious and that the satirical elements mostly occurred at the beginning, but that’s probably just me. Also, though it's true I very nearly called this novella MOURNING WOOD -- don't ask -- it was never intended as a sequel to Willy.) I was not at all surprised that virtually no one seemed to recognize the theme as an extended metaphor for HIV. After all, that’s pretty subtle. However, I was surprised that no one commented upon the ubiquitous references to familiar fairy tales. For instance, the two young girls in the group home are named Bianca and Rosaria. I mean, come on. Rose White and Rose Red, right? Not exactly a coded message. Various passages begin with “once upon a time,” and the facility director is consistently referred to as “the Troll.” How obscure is this? In an effort to get to her grandmother’s house, Rosaria encounters “the witch" on the bus and is advised to “leave a trail of breadcrumbs.” Then she’s pursued by a carnivorous beast and aided by a woodsman. For goodness sake, she even wears a red hoodie! Work with me here, people! Later, there’s a mention of the creature “huffing and puffing” at a barricaded door, and at one point she actually utters the words “mirror, mirror, on the wall.” Did no one notice any of this?

Again, it must be me.

Just kidding. I’m very glad people are enjoying it. If you’re curious, check out the excerpt below. Thanks.


An excerpt from WOOD by Robert Dunbar:


Boundaries shift.

Towns and cities grow in spurts, sometimes encroaching upon places better left alone, areas that through a sort of negative geography remain neither forest nor park, neither rural nor urban. No proper designations exist. Unnamed and unclaimed, such regions appear on no map. They never have. Perhaps always they seemed too insignificant: half a lot, a strip of woodland, an acre of bog. Dead space. Easily overlooked or deliberately ignored. As though, all along, people knew … or at least suspected.

Yet such places exist everywhere. In every village. Every suburb. Ask any child. They form the terrain of all the darkest fairytales, the landscape of nightmares.

Alleyways through the worst sections of town inevitably empty into overgrown fields, scruffy and menacing and strewn with rubbish. Bad places. Dwellings on these outskirts slouch toward bitter soil. Boards splinter. Bricks crumble into gravel. So many futile walls loom, intermittent with tilting fences of all variety, a plethora of barricades (as though residents sincerely believed it could be kept at bay). Behind cinderblock barriers, chains rattle as dogs howl out their rage and fear. It is not wilderness that creeps up against these blighted neighborhoods.

Perhaps someday mankind will invent a term for that which seeps in, someday when the cities have decayed and the suburbs have withered and the bad places have inherited the earth. Perhaps, at last, the survivors will know Hell when they see it.


Check out the book trailer if you get a chance. Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y36Br...