Wylding Hall

In the wake of the mysterious death of their lead singer, the young members of a legendary folk-rock band find themselves at Wylding Hall, an old English country house, with its own dark secrets. There they will record Wylding Hall, the album that will consecrate them and mark a before and after in their career... but at a terrifying cost, when Julian Blake, their new singer, disappears inside the mansion never to be seen again. Now, years later, each of the surviving musicians, their friends and lovers including a psychic, a photographer and the band's manager meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own version of what happened during that summer. But what is the true story? And what really happened to the young and show more talented Julian Blake?
"Windhollow Faire" is an up-and-coming acid folk band who have been sent to Wylding Hall, an ancient English country mansion, by their manager, to create their first album. The album they make becomes a classic, but it is steeped in tragedy as the band’s lead singer disappears during the sessions. Years later the surviving band members and those involved in the Wylding Hall recordings come together again to tell their own memories of what really happened at the mysterious mansion.

The author, Elizabeth Hand, has created a magical tale that expertly merges the story of the young band with mythology. The story is cleverly written in "documentary style" with multiple unreliable narrators, giving very differing viewpoints and justification of the events. The story is mysterious and atmospheric with descriptions giving the whole thing a magical, eerie, and uncanny feeling. The drug-infused meanderings of the band work brilliantly with the slowly revealing "fairy tale" at the base of the narrative. The band and its hippy members just feel right, and the author throws in names and places from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s folk music scene that gives the story a feeling of real authenticity.

The "fairy tale" elements are also cleverly done and although never explicitly mentioned, there is enough in the folkloric elements and the fey feather-footed girl, to make it clear that the band, Windhollow Faire, are encountering members of the "little folk" realm. At times, the book slows down a bit, but overall, this was a creative and creepy read with pages oozing with atmosphere and mystery. I really liked everything about the book and would recommend it to anyone that loves a good mystery laced with a haunted house tale. show less

In this novella set in the early 70s, the five young members of a folk band must spend a few weeks in an old manor house with the aim of working on their second record. The leader of the band is a brilliant and enigmatic young man, Julian Blake, who has just lost her girlfriend. From the beginning, we are told that there’s something ominous and creepy about the place, that something bad is going to happen at the end, and it’s clear that this is not going to be a 100% realistic story. The novella is made up of the oral testimonies of the surviving members of the band and of several people close to them that are being recorded as part of a documentary being made years later. So, we get the different witnesses’ versions and opinions show more about what happened, sometimes conflicting, alternating all the time among the different voices. Thanks to this sort of Rashomonesque approach, it’s clear that neither the characters nor their memories are completely reliable, and this contributes to make the story more ambiguous and mysterious and the characters more authentic.

This is a story that grew on me as I read it, as the tension escalated, as I got used to the particular structure of the novella and I started to empathize with the characters and their problems. And, there were some scenes that I found really creepy (even though I was reading the book in the subway, not the best place to feel scared). I had only read a couple of Elizabeth Hand’s short stories before, but after reading “Wylding Hall” I plan to read other books by this author.

So, if you’re looking for a well-written, eerie, with a touch of gothic novella, this could be the perfect book for you. show less

Wylding hall

"Wylding Hall," tells the story of a group of folk-rock musicians who spend the summer of 1972 in a remote Manor House in the wilds of Hampshire to put their second album together. By the end of the summer, the lead singer, a beautiful but shy young man who is fascinated by the "Magik" with a K, Alistair Crowley style, has disappeared without a trace.

The story is told in a series of modern day, rockumentary style interviews with members of the band, their manager, a psychic girlfriend, a music journalist and local boy who briefly played roadie/photographer.

This format makes the story perfect for being turned into an audiobook. The version I listened to had a different narrator for each person being interviewed. Apart from an show more article written at the time by the journalist, there was no text beyond the statements made by the interviewees.

The book cuts from one interviewee to the next, revealing events with bit by bit. It's easy to imagine the once beautiful, now ageing musicians, seated against a dark background and speaking directly to camera.

The story has a paranormal feel to it but leaves room for other interpretations - just about. To me, it seemed slightly spooky rather than chilling.

What held my interest was how clearly the characters were defined by the way they gave their account of events. They were heavy on nostalgia, looking back on the golden summer of their youth and that gave me permission to be nostalgic too. I liked the way their accounts were inconsistent with one another, in the way in which any long-ago event that has since become legend will be.

The chaotic, semi-childish, drug-enabled way the young people live in their isolated house, the fugue that they fall into when spending their whole time making music seemed real to me.

The introduction of the supernatural elements was subtle. Ideas were wound around the history of the house, the warnings contained in the old folk songs they studied, the strange woods surrounding a Long Barrow and the pictures in the local pub of Wren Hunting.

It was an entertaining way to spend four hours, although it seemed to me that the drug and sun-soaked summer of seventy-two was a stranger land to visit than any of the hinted-at faerie realms touching the house. show less

Windhollow Faire are an up-and-coming acid folk band who have been sent to Wylding Hall, an ancient English country mansion, by their manager, to create their first album. The album they make becomes a classic but it is bathed in tragedy as the band’s mercurial singer disappears during the sessions. Years later the surviving band members and those involved in the Wylding Hall recordings come together to tell their own version of what happened at the mysterious mansion. Elizabeth Hand weaves a magical tale that splendidly merges a compelling tale of a young band with the mythology of wren and fairy. The story is cleverly crafted in documentary style with multiple unreliable narrators, giving differing viewpoints and justification of show more events. The story is mysterious and atmospheric with Hand’s descriptions giving the whole thing a magical, uncanny feeling. The golden, drug-infused meanderings of the band work brilliantly with the slowly revealing fairy tale at the centre of the narrative. The band and its hippy-dippy members feel correct and Hand drops in names and places from the late ‘60s / early ‘70s folk scene that gives their story a real authenticity. The fairy elements are also cleverly handled and although never explicitly mentioned there is enough in the folkloric wren elements and the fey, feather-footed girl to make it clear that Windhollow Faire are encountering the little folk. I loved everything about “Wylding Hall”. show less

I LOVE books like this. It's got all the things I enjoy...a strangely beautiful, yet creepy old English manor. A band from the 70s working on an album. Interesting characters that pull you in. And quiet, understated horror.

I pretty much blew through this short novel in a single sitting, almost immediately fascinated with the idea of a slightly successful 70s folk rock band in the process of getting over the scandal of a girlfriend of one of the band members dying, the replacement of their lead singer, and the band confining themselves to a remote location that, at first, seems magical.

If I have any complaints about this story--and truly, I have none--it would be that I would have liked to have seen it a bit longer, so the author could show more add a bit more about them actually working up songs and working together as a band. But Hand does a very good job of making them a group anyway.

And there is horror here, but it's the best kind...the kind that most comes from what you imagine is going on offstage. With a few simple strokes, hand creates an ominous, fascinating place in Wylding Hall, making it the lead character.

Damn. Now I have to go and find more of Hand's writing. show less

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand is a novella that blends folklore and horror and is set in a decaying English manor house. During the 1970’s a British group of young musicians have been placed there by their manager so that they will concentrate on getting their second album ready. For the group it is an isolated summer of booze, drugs and incredible creativity. It is also a summer of strange happenings, foreboding incidents and dark vibrations, ending with the disappearance of one of the group members.

We are being told about this summer by the very few people who knew of it. The band members, their manager and a few friends who visited Wylding Hall are being interviewed by a documentary film-maker. The story emerges through these show more conversational-style entries and although some thirty years have passed, the recounting is still impactful and quietly horrifying. But we are never quite sure whose story is the truthful one.

At first I was a little impatient with the story as it moved very slowly, but the author took her time both in introducing the characters and building the plot. With it’s dark atmosphere and implications of the supernatural, it was clear that something was drawing ever closer to these young people. While not a lot happened in this story, it was well written and both engaged and unsettled this reader. show less

A fantasy novel with a tinge of horror, [Wylding Hall] looks back to the early 1970s, when folk-rock bands were bringing modern rock-music instrumentation and sensibilities to traditional English music. Such a band, as the book imagines, was Windhollow Faire, in the months following the moderate success of their first album. At the urging of their producer, they decided to seek a higher artistic level through an intensive period of songwriting and practice. Over the course of one golden summer, they isolated themselves in a remote old manor, the eponymous Wylding Hall - far out in the English countryside, thoroughly out of touch with the city in that pre-mobile, pre-internet era. They expected the musical work, the sex, and the drugs - show more but not the old, dark, inhuman forces that inhabited the manor, awaiting the arrival of anyone properly attuned. That summer brought Windhollow Faire the creation of their finest album, but also the mysterious loss of the otherworldly Julian Blake, their songwriter and lead guitarist.

The novel comprises a collage of interviews, of the band members, their producer, and a few others, collected today, decades after that eventful summer. The characters' vivid, contemporary voices, the voices of now-old people recalling the passions of their teenaged and early-twenties selves, stand in conversation with each other. The picture of events the interviews build is complicated by their frequent disagreements, driven by differences of class and temperament. Hand employs here one of her signature fictional moves: an extraordinary event recalled, or sometimes revisited, in a contemporary setting after an interval of decades.

In an interesting interview on the Coode Street Podcast, Hand discusses the novel. In imagining Windhollow Faire, she was thinking of The Watersons (not very rock&roll, this piece) and Fairport Convention. However, my favorite band in the genre is Steeleye Span (Youtube links may break, or begin with ads). She also notes that the audiobook employs a different actor for each character, cleverly mirroring the multivocal structure of the story.

At 146 pages, the book is the perfect length for the tale. PS Publishing has done a beautiful job of the book's design and production. [Wylding Hall] is an atmospheric, nostalgic, haunted-house story, rooted in music and its power in our lives. show less