The Wych Elm

I'm a fan. I've read and (mostly) loved all Tana French's books. I really liked this one; however, it diverges from her regular offerings in that the book isn't part of the Dublin Murder Squad series and, although there is a mystery, it isn't the main plot driver. The story is really a character study of the protagonist, Toby Hennessy, who skates above the troubled waters of the world in his rich-privileged-white-man bubble. Until he becomes the victim of a crime, and discovers how his own thoughtless actions have aided and abetted another.

This story isn't going to be for everyone. The Witch Elm IS NOT A THRILLER. It is a literary novel with a crime in it. It's a slow, rich burn with French's usual evocative, beautiful prose. Although show more we do discover the solution to the mystery in the witch elm, the real question is whether Toby will be able to change the kind of person he is. Although he does gain some awareness, he makes a grave mistake in how he chooses to transform himself, and we're left hanging as to whether he has truly succeeded. show less

Tana French has been lauded for her writing and her "ingenious plotting" by people who know a lot more about those subjects than I do (like Stephen King) but I concur with that assessment. I've only read one other book by her but I intend to read more.

Toby has lived a charmed life--he's good looking, intelligent, charming and, above all, lucky. At the age of twenty-eight he has a great job as the public relations person for a Dublin art gallery, he has a girlfriend who he adores and who adores him, he's got good mates and a close family. He has no siblings but his two cousins, Leon and Susanna, are his age and because they spent each summer with their uncle Hugo in his huge old house while their parents vacationed together they are show more closer perhaps than siblings would have been. Then his life is torn asunder one night when Toby's flat is broken into and he is badly beaten by the robbers. He has continuing neurological problems which may or may not resolve over time. He is not fit for work and he is terrified of being alone in his apartment. So, when his cousin Susanna tells him that Uncle Hugo is dying of brain cancer and he could use someone to move in with him, Toby decides to give it a go. He convinces his girlfriend Melissa to move in with him and it all seems to be working well for everyone. One Sunday when the whole clan has gathered at Hugo's house for lunch Susanna's two youngsters make a terrifying discovery. They find a skull in a hollow in a big wych elm at the end of Hugo's garden. Soon the police are crawling all over the garden where they discover a complete skeleton which turns out to be a classmate of Toby and Leon's who went missing the summer after they graduated from school. Everyone assumed he had committed suicide because he got such bad marks he couldn't get into any post-secondary schools. Of course the police soon determine he was killed and put into the tree to hide him. Did Toby kill him? Some evidence seems to point to him. When you finally learn who the guilty party was you can see how deftly French set this up. And then there is a final little twist that will leave your head spinning.

Remarkably good. show less

Immersive and occasionally unsettling, The Wych Elm by Tana French is an engrossing exploration into the fracturing of one's identity amidst an unexpected crisis. The story revolves around Toby, a charismatic young man from Dublin who suffers a debilitating head injury after a brutal home invasion. French pairs this personal jeopardy with the shocking discovery of a skull in an elm tree at Toby's family's ancestral garden, pulling him into a whirlwind investigation that discloses uncomfortable realities about his past.

French’s delicacy in portraying the protagonist provides a deep insight into human nature, memory, and self-deception. Toby is written sympathetically, despite being an unreliable narrator, which further enhances the show more intrigue. The gradual disintegration of Toby’s erstwhile life, bundled with the eeriness of uncovered family secrets, creates a thick layer of psychological suspense.

Although tangled at times, French’s narrative delivers unfolding layers of truth encapsulated in an atmosphere of fear and disbelief. The eerie ambience echoes long after finishing. The illustrations of privilege, luck, and the malleability of truth make The Wych Elm an engrossing read. However, ambiguity in resolution might leave some readers craving more closure. Despite its few drawbacks, French succeeds in delivering a compelling blend of thrill and introspection.

For any interested, the seed for this story lies in an unsolved true crime case that did, indeed, involve a female skull found in a Wych elm in 1943. The following year the graffiti phrase 'Who put Bella down the Wych elm' showed up. Forensics has determined her likely time of death was in or around October 1941.

***Purchased and read for my own enjoyment. show less

If it has Tana French's name on it, I'm going to read it. I love the Dublin Murder Squad series. The Witch Elm is however, a stand alone novel.

Toby breezes through life, doing well at work, lucky in love and with many friends and a supportive and loving extended family. But his life changes one night when his apartment is broken into - and he is severely beaten. He retreats to the family home to take time to heal and help out his elderly uncle. But that wished for peace is also broken - by the discovery of a skeleton in the garden of the house.

What can I say? French's writing is brilliant. The plot and the reader's expectations change multiple times. As Toby tries to puzzle out the past and present, new pieces are added and subtracted show more by his family, the police and his faulty memory until he can no longer discern what is truth and what is not. We become privy to the past even as the present changes direction. My outlook as to the whodunit and the ending changed many times over the course of the book.

French's characterizations are in-depth, rich and full with detail. The reader feels as though these are people they have actually met and conversed with. Many of the characters are not particularly likeable - and for me that included lead character Toby. The exceptions are Uncle Hugo and Toby's girlfriend Melissa. His cousins are particularly well-drawn, evoking a visceral reaction. Detective Rafferty is after the truth and his interrogations and actions are so well done.

The Witch Elm is hard to categorize - it's a mystery and police procedural, but at the heart of it I would say it's a character study.

This one's a chunkster weighing in at over 500 pages. I decided to listen to The Witch Elm this time 'round. Paul Nugent was the reader and he was wonderful. His voice is easy to listen to, his enunciation clear and his accent appealing. But where he really shines is in bringing the story to life. His interpretation was wonderful. He captures the emotion, angst, action, tension and more, drawing the listener in. Different tones, accents and tenors identify each character.

I will be eagerly waiting the next book from French! show less

After being violently attacked during a burglary in his apartment, the normally unflappable Toby is no longer able to spend nights alone. At his cousin Susanna’s request, he agrees to stay at his family’s ancestral home to look after his uncle Hugo, recently diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. And perhaps the time off from work and the peaceful setting will speed Toby’s recovery. But one afternoon during a family gathering a skull is discovered in the trunk of a wych elm tree in the garden, and the subsequent investigation throws the family into chaos.

The victim turns out to be someone known to Toby and his cousins, but it’s hard to imagine how the skull ended up in the tree. Was it in any way related to the burglary and show more attack? The police investigation has so many twists that almost any character in the novel could have committed the crimes. Tana French kept the suspense on high from start to finish, bringing forward more than one plausible suspect with only the number of pages remaining as a clue to whether they were really “the one.”

I found Toby rather obnoxious and self-centered, but that made for the most interesting aspect of this novel. While the attack damaged Toby’s memory and made him an unreliable narrator, in a painfully emotional scene with cousins Susanna & Leon, they revealed how Toby’s white male privilege caused him to minimize, discard, or “forget” key events in their lives. This behavior turned out to be a significant contributing factor in the victim’s untimely death. While it took Tana French a long time (508 pages!) to wrap up all the loose ends in this book, there is much to admire and think about. show less

The Witch Elm by Tana French reads less like a thriller and more like a mystery. Even then, it is less a whodunit and more of a search for the correct psychopath. All of this with elements of a family drama, a coming-of-age reckoning, and a reflection on the idea of memory. Toby’s story doesn’t appear to be complex, and yet there are more layers to it than a good lasagna. And yet, you will spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out just how big a tree needs to be to hide a man.

Ms. French puts poor Toby through the shit in The Witch Elm. Not only does he face a brutal assault at the hands of burglars in his home, but he must also deal with his favorite uncle slowly dying from brain cancer. Because that is not enough for show more one person to experience in a matter of weeks, she then adds a murder mystery at the family home on top of all that. Yet, for the most part, Toby handles all of it better than I would on my best day. Just thinking about dealing with all that is enough to send me into an anxiety-filled paralysis.

As most of her novels are more character than plot-driven, this is exactly the point. She takes Toby and pushes him to see what his breaking point is. How she does this is brilliant, fascinating, and cruel, as she questions the very nature of memory. She starts with the obvious with Toby’s memory loss due to the brain injuries he suffers. Her shift towards the frailty of memory as a whole is subtle and yet terrifying, as she points out again and again that two people will remember two very different events. While Toby questions the very nature of his relationships with his cousins, you too can’t help but question the validity of all of your memories. Eventually, the term unreliable witness has a completely different meaning as you watch Toby repeatedly reconcile his memories with the stories others tell him.

Because Ms. French is a writing master, she doesn’t stop with memory though. She throws in the complications of family dynamics. Here too, Toby realizes that the relationships he thought were so important may not have the same importance to other family members. This hurts in any relationship, but there is something particularly bittersweet when this happens among family. For Toby, it throws yet another level of tension into an already intense situation.

The Witch Elm is the type of story where the whodunit is less important than the reasons why and what happens next. That doesn’t mean that the whodunit reveal isn’t chilling. In fact, it is so matter-of-fact as to be very disturbing upon reflection. Still, after everything Toby experiences, everything we learn about the reasoning behind the murder is essentially anticlimactic. While not totally predictable, one can infer a lot before the big reveal, and the whole scene is less than satisfactory, which again is Ms. French’s plan.

If anything, The Witch Elm is a tough read that reiterates that life rarely provides satisfactory answers to its problems. I expected the intensity and the level of disturbing given the other French novels I read. I was not prepared for the emotional aspect of the story. Toby bears so much, and you can’t help but empathize with him as he waffles between anger, grief, confusion, anxiety, and everything in between. All while obsessing over the size of that damn tree. show less

3.0 stars for the story but 4.5 stars for the writing because Tana French, so 3.5 total?

God, Tana French is just such a fantastic writer. Even though this book doesn't measure up to the best of the Dublin Murder series in the sense of perfect characterization, writing, and plot all in one book, it's still extraordinarily crafted. I don't like contemporary books at all, and yet I found this one compulsively readable because of French's excellent writing. I really don't think there's a better prose stylist of popular fiction out there today. Her sentences are so strong, she can describe a setting or a mood in just a few words, and while her writing is dense it's also incredibly readable. I can't praise her writing skills highly enough. show more

The two areas that French most excels--psychology and prose--are out in full force here. One of the things I most appreciate about French is how much she loves to grapple with ideas and the inner workings of people. She's just so so so good at it, too. This book is mostly an extended character study with a backdrop of murder, and she's mostly exploring the idea of how being incredibly lucky (both privileged and just flat-out having an easy life with little tragedy or setbacks) could shape a person. And she does a really good job with that. All of Toby's best qualities and flaws are so entirely shaped by how easy a life he's had and what happens when reality intrudes.

But I didn't love Toby as a character (I found him very realistic, but not someone I'd want to interact with) and unlike in her Dublin Murder Squad series, the mystery isn't really the core of the book, and so plot-wise, I wasn't terribly impressed. Especially because the idea of a body in a wych elm is so incredibly gothic and wonderful--the actual reality of how it ended up in that tree in this book just seems like a letdown even if it's incredibly well-crafted. I wanted something at least a little mystical, like what's hinted at in Into the Woods or something. In addition, I found the ending depressing. French has always gone dark, and that's no bad thing, but the ending to this book, while realistic, just felt grim in a way most of her endings haven't.

All of this to say: I really enjoyed reading this book, but I didn't love it. show less