Follow Me to Ground

What a strange and calmly magical book this was. Rainsford's storytelling is gorgeous, and the novel floats along in such a way that the twists are all the more shocking. What comes to mind is that moving into the world of this novel is like drifting down a quiet river, where the lands on shore get darker and stranger with each bend.

Short, sweet, and wonderfully weird, with just the right amount of darkness. I wish there were a sequel to fall into, or that Rainsford had a whole library of writing for me to wander through.

Absolutely recommended.

The reader is plunged without any preliminary or background explanation into the strange world of Ada and her father. What at first could be any rural American setting is soon revealed to be something quite else, and while Ada and her father could at first be mistaken for any rural folk healers are soon revealed to also be something quite else.

Ada and her father treat “Cures,” the human folks, by opening their bodies, manipulating their insides, singing, and removing their illnesses—into bowls, into the walls, and such. Diseased lungs are removed and put into the pantry while the Cure is buried in a special plot of ground.

Ada’s and her father’s bodies are themselves mutable. Her father, like a werewolf, changes into something show more hairy and four-legged when he goes out to hunt at night. Ada, when she first tries to have sex with a Cure, discovers that she’s lacking the necessary parts, and so she develops them. She ultimately gets a lot of use out of her new genitalia when she starts a relationship with the Cure called Samson. Ada’s father disapproves of her relationship with Samson, and the manner in which Ada deals with this disapproval leads to the unsettling denouement.

Chapters from Ada’s POV are interspersed with brief interview-like chapters from the POV of various Cures, usually revealing their feelings about or interactions with Ada.

Ada herself is a puzzle. Is she motivated by love or purely physical desire? Her father at one point says she has no heart. I’m not sure whether he meant it literally, figuratively, or both. Ada certainly behaves as if she had some compassion for her Cures, but she also is dispassionate in describing their bodies. In fact, flesh is a central concern of this novel, both the human flesh of the Cures and of Samson, and the flesh of Ada, which is something else entirely. Ada is definitely an interesting protagonist, a woman firmly grounded in her body and who knows what she wants. show less

So hard to put into words ... I was captivated by page 7 - intrigued, horrified, delighted, shocked - wondering what I was reading and if I wanted to keep going yet completely unable to stop reading. A very slim hardcover at just under 200 pages, I was a little disappointed at first to see the size, but there is more to chew on here than most other tomes twice the size. This novel packs a huge punch! Dreamy, nightmarish, poetic, brilliant, creepy, erotic, dark, bold ... hard to say I loved it because much of what it entails is off-putting, disgusting, taboo yet the languid way in which the story is told, the quality of color and texture, the sense of place (yet no place), the structure and tiny details, the p.o.v., the familiar/alien show more presented side by side and the uncertainty of many things makes me love it. I read it once, and pondered for a couple days, then read it again looking for things and connections I missed, then pondered some more. This tale makes you think, and I am certain my brain fell out along the way and is stewing in The Ground, putting all the pieces together. show less

I can’t help but think that it would have taken a writer like Stephen King about 5-600 pages to tell this story. In that space, he may have fleshed out more details than Rainsford does, but probably would not have produced a stranger or more compelling read. There is little doubt that this novel is quite strange. By mixing in a mind-boggling array of literary elements (horror, mythology, allegory, metaphor, fairytale, and coming-of-age), Rainsford has created a dark and disturbing reading experience. She accomplishes this feat with utmost finesse by never overexplaining or providing clear answers. Her approach gives the novel a wonderfully eerie quality and an unsettling sense of tension and dread.

Hidden among all of the strangeness show more are some intriguing explorations of humanity and feminist theory. Being human means experiencing pain, needing connection, balancing desire with duty, becoming ill and eventually dying. Becoming a woman means experiencing first love, desire, nurturing, dismissal, and often pregnancy.

Ada is the creation of her father. Neither is human. She narrates the tale with a voice that reflects her unquestioning naiveté about what they do and their surroundings. The two practice an unusual form of healing. They cure ailments by literally opening their “cure’s” bodies, removing diseased organs and restoring them with strange potions. While the “cures” wait, they are buried in a patch of carefully prepared ground which also works a mysterious restoration on them. The time and place where all of this occurs is unspecified. We are told little about it. It is hot. There is a nearby lake made dangerous by its resident monster. Abundant clues suggest that the place is rural and isolated where the inhabitants lead simple lives. Cameos by several of the townsfolk provide bits of evidence that further embellish the story.

Rainsford drives her plot by introducing a troubled local young man named Samson. He arrives for a fairly minor cure but eventually awakens desire in Ada that resembles a teenage crush. Ada’s father and Samson’s sister both see this as a problem. Ada’s father thinks Samson as mentally ill and knows that his methods cannot cure him. Samson’s sister, Octavia, raises vague concerns that he may be a dangerous sexual predator. Driven by desire, Ada disregards these warnings and attempts to treat Samson using the only methods she knows.

FOLLOW ME TO GROUND is a gripping tale with unrelenting weirdness and horror. Despite copious chilling images, Rainsford’s writing can be quite lyrical. This short novel is probably not for everyone but will stimulate much contemplation and definitely will linger if one persists to the end. show less

Ada, the narrator, and her "father" are human-appearing creatures who can heal Cures (as they call humans) by opening them and taking out the Sick, sometime burying them in the Ground where they sleep for a while before emerging, healed. We learn that Ada's father created her in the Ground out of branches and other things, when she finds the remains of some of his early attempts.

She and a local boy, Samson, are attracted to each other and go off in his truck for intimate time. Ada's father isn't happy about that, and neither is Samson's strange sister, who's a pregnant widow. Why? Samson wants them to run away together, but Ada buries him in the Ground - to make him become like her? to hide him till her father is gone?

One of her Cures show more becomes obsessed by Ada, showing up to be cured, acting more and more odd. Finally Ada uses her power for evil, and after that I don't understand what happened. We've seen some statements about Ada and her father throughout the book from villagers that imply she stopped healing people and nobody knows what became of her.

So a great premise, and fascinating characters, but for me the ending didn't work. show less

3.5 stars
Unflinching medical / body horror. Don’t go into this expecting clean cut explanations or a tidy ending because you won’t get it. That said, sometimes when we fill in the blanks ourselves we create something scarier than what would be on the page.

Normally purple prose would turn me off but as the narrator / MC is non- human it’s enjoyable to see how her brain interprets her daily life and interactions. The “interviews” with the townsfolk adds an added depth to the character which I thought was very creative.

Loved all the healing / medical procedures and the neutrality and detachment in which it’s written. It’s all so bizarre and feels like a fever dream but in a good way?

I would read from this author again, show more solid debut! Would recommend to certain people in my reading circle! show less

Follow Me To Ground is the story of Ada and her father who live outside a village they serve by curing what ails them. They sometimes have to bury them in “The Ground” for a few days for the cure to work, but most of them they can open them up with their hands and remove the illness, sometimes singing it away. They keep to themselves, other than when the Cures, their word for the townspeople, come for a treatment.

That changes when a vital young man comes for a cure and Ada falls for him. The two begin seeing each other secretly though his pregnant sister is suspicious and tries to warn Ada off. So does Ada’s father who keeps telling her there is a sickness in him. This leads to a crisis and Ada takes decisive and shocking action.

I show more think if Follow Me To Ground were as long as a conventional novel it would have dragged, but it is the perfect length for its story which is fairly simple despite the weighty ideas. This is very much a show-not-tell sort of book and Ada jumps right in describing Cures as she performs them so we quickly learn we are in some fantastical story.

I confess when Samson turned out to have a truck, I was disconcerted for a moment. It felt like a story out of time and yet, just like that, I realized it was happening more or less in the present. This made it feel strange and less probable. It also made the penny not dropping for Ada less likely. Yet, the penny never dropped.

I am unsure whether I can really say I liked the book, but I won’t forget it. It made me uncomfortable and has provoked a lot of thinking while doing other things. I finished it Saturday morning and have thought about it over and over again since then. It is a memorable book that was hard to put down, but likable. Not even close.

I received an e-galley of Follow Me To Ground from the publisher through NetGalley.

Follow Me To Ground at Scribner | Simon & Schuster

Sue Rainsford

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