The Reddening

“What was done in there, in that dark horrible place, should have stayed buried. And no good will come of them digging up any more of what’s down there.”Following her attendance at a lecture and opening exhibition, a journalist, Katherine (“Kat”), is on assignment for Devon Life and Style monthly to write an article on the “extraordinary finds at the Brickburgh cave,” “used thirteen thousand years ago.” It is a “British site that signifies a formal occupation, including burials across the centuries” filled with bones, both human and animal, tools, carven images, flute-like musical instruments, and other artefacts, discovered along the rocky coast of South Devon. Archeologists exploring and excavating the caverns determine “the inhabitants of the Brickburgh caves were engaged in a systematic, industrialized practice of nutritional cannibalism” with the “cranial vault of some victims… of particular importance.” Going to the site with Kat is her boyfriend, Steve.Helene is drawn to the rocky cliffs and caves along the Devon shore to retrace the final steps of her brother, Lincoln, after receiving eerie and mostly meaningless recordings of odd noises some of which “suggested that it might possess both human and animal origins” he made by inserting a microphone through rock fissures. The last recording he made near the recently discovered caves is dated two weeks prior to his initial disappearance and apparent, unexpected, out-of-character suicide at the age of thirty by jumping “from the Severn Bridge.”The lives of Kat, Steve, and Helene, like those of many others, will never be the same following lengthy excavations of the caves in Adam L. G. Nevill’s latest novel, THE REDDENING (2019).One of the many unique characteristics of Adam Nevill’s writing is every novel he has written is different from the others. That said, for THE REDDENING he returns to a type of horror he championed in what is arguably his most popular novel of all, THE RITUAL (2011)—folk horror. The author of the “Folk Lore” web site writes, “Folk horror is a sub-genre of horror fiction characterised by reference to European, pagan traditions. Stories typically involve standing stone circles, earthworks, elaborate rituals or nature deities. While the genre is not overtly concerned with Christian ideology, frequently used terms such as 'demon' and 'devil' appear to associate folk horror with Christian demonology. However, while many stories will initially imply that menacing forces are Satanic, the same forces are often found to pre-date established Christianity. Folk horror is discordant with Neopaganism, in its portrayal of magical agencies as rarely (if ever) benevolent.” In an October 2019 interview Adam Nevill declares, “I wanted a legacy of isolated folklore to actually reach back sixty thousand years, and beyond, and deeply into prehistory itself… with a strong element of cosmic horror in which vast swathes of time and space are suggested by the locale and the aesthetic. So [THE REDDENING] was most certainly folk horror but with a definite cosmic horror angle too. It was to be a savage, brutal and genocidal folk legacy, one of industrial slaughter, and not something that involved flowers, maypoles, saucy rhymes, wenches, or the Green Man… There was no corn dolly, no wreath or totems on my mind; I wanted something earthier, more bestial and stranger that still might find a place in modern festivals, witch-wives and folk magic.” With THE REDDENING Nevill definitely accomplishes his goal.The opening of THE REDDENING helps prepare readers for what they are about to encounter. The author’s writing style is comprised of carefully composed words and sentences which are not only highly descriptive, but bring to life the paradoxical “raw and wild beauty” of a locale which inspires “awe.” Before Kat, Steve, and Helene are introduced, Nevill gives readers a shocking scene of brutality above and beyond the grounds of the caves—a kind of visceral violence readers will encounter throughout the novel. The amount of effort and craft Nevill has put into the writing of the novel before the final production of THE REDDENING is evident. So is the artistry behind the story’s plot.THE REDDENING is a tale of monumental collisions. Kat is in collision with her personal past just as Helene is in collision with the suicide of her brother. Both are looking for answers and relief. Ironically, both of their fates become quite interconnected and not always in good ways. The ancient past is in collision with the modern as it becomes apparent that much more than ancient bones and relics have been disturbed inside the Brickburgh caves. The supernatural is in collision with modern day corruption and criminal activity as the owner of the property above and beyond the network of caves, a former rock star, greedily builds an empire of his own and will stop at nothing to achieve success. The lives of those ancient people who lived in the caves and those living today along the Devon shore are in clash as rituals long believed to be dead and ludicrous are kept alive by people who still believe in the power of those rituals which they insist must be maintained. By the novel’s conclusion, all of nature: the earth below, its inhospitable surface with deadly cliffs and crags, barren ground, and decayed human structures showing even more decay than the relics and mysteries of the newly opened caves, and the unfeeling and deadly sea itself, are all in variance with each other and mankind. Because of all of the discord, evil abounds.Nevill makes use of and proves his mastery of plot as he manages the many threads which make up the carefully woven plot of THE REDDENING. Suspense and mystery abound throughout THE REDDENING as Nevill leaves readers no choice but to follow him deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of impending doom. There are a number of movie audience-like moments when the reader is likely to gasp, “Don’t go in there! Don’t do that!” fearing the worse as characters they have come to feel are real and care about (especially the two female leads) either make perilous decisions or find themselves in hell-wrought situations with the author always in command of what will happen next and often producing surprises for the reader. All of these elements, so vividly brought to life, are bound to get under the reader’s skin, leaving them desperate for a conclusion, but one they may also be frightened to confront.The final chapters of THE REDDENING are filled with non-stop, fast-moving action and revelations. Some portions are bloody and violent. Some are purposefully ambiguous, almost Lovecraftian at times, producing a fearsome impact. Some are heart-touching. At the end of the novel as an added bonus, Adam Nevill provides an afterword: “Story Notes: About This Horror” which gives readers some very personal insight into how THE REDDENING began to take shape in the author’s inspired imagination. All in all, THE REDDENING is horror fiction at its captivating best.The author of the previously cited Folk Horror web site writes, “British writers of supernatural fiction such as M.R. James, Arthur Machen, L.T.C. Rolt, Robert Aikman, Alan Garner and Algernon Blackwood have produced some of the finest examples of folk horror. Each writes of huge, menacing and ultimately unknowable forces which besiege mankind.” One day, to that list of authors the name of Adam Nevill will likely be added—if it shouldn’t be already.

Adam Nevill is an excellent writer. His folk horror thrillers are captivating. The Reddening is no exception.HOWEVER….there are some faults with this book.1) Nevill seems to fall for the ‘no men can be good’ theme in this one. At best, male figures are neutral. As I went along, I couldn’t help but notice any time a male figure would be introduced, he would be a ‘bad guy’. It became too obvious2) The gore was overdone. This was a bit unnecessary. True horror occurs when the imagination is allowed to come to the fore. Implicit vs. explicit.Those two faults notwithstanding, a captivating and recommended read.

First book I've read by this author, was a bit disappointed... It's not the worst book I've read but it took a long time to get into. It wasn't descriptive enough where it was needed most, at least for me. It was hard to visualize. It didn't keep me on the edge of my seat as I was hoping it would. May give another one of his books a shot.

In a recent first gush of excitement after reading Adam Nevill’s “The Reddening” I listed it among the finest achievements in the field of horror in at least the last decade. Now that I have slept on the matter a few days I have not changed my opinion. In fact, if I toss out the label horror I consider it among the finest new fiction.“The Reddening” begins quietly and accelerates. A man who is not exactly lost but who has hiked further than he should in a desolate seaside area in Devon with a treacherous cliff on one side and empty hills on the other fears that he will have difficulty making it back to his parked his car. It turns out that he is correct. Then a couple of bickering campers in the same area are set upon by a slow-moving band of naked men and women painted in red carrying sharp rocks. This chapter leaves no doubt that there is something extremely dangerous in those hills.And a man paragliding over the sea spots where a cliff wall has sheared away leaving what appears to be an opening, and his subsequent exploration reveals a cave with signs of habitation, human and otherwise, going back millennia. Scientists begin excavating and eventually the media and the public are enthralled.I don’t consider any of that spoiler. Just setting the stage.Other characters are introduced, and beyond that I intend to say little about any of them or the ones I have already mentioned. They seem initially to have little relationship with one another, and for a while it is unclear who is central to the novel. One effect of not immediately identifying who is central is that we are less sure for a long time who is hero and who victim. And that chapter with the campers has told us that there will be victims. Another effect is that we do pay closer attention to each one and pick up better on the little bits of knowledge and information that comes their way and our way.We know as much as each character, but we know more than any single one for we have picked up other bits from other characters. Little happens in the first third of the novel after the camper incident, but suspense and tension are built as we learn more and start building a scenario in our minds. When a reporter listens to a fairly dry scientific lecture on discoveries in the caves we find ourselves cringing even more than she does. What, we worry, is going to happen to her and with others whom we have met and in whom we have become invested?We know there are some bad people about, for we recall those campers. But is there something else? Something evil, something persisting from eons past, something even supernatural? But in the novel that is not quite described but comes to us more through hint and suggestion, and the image that we create in our own minds surpasses what even Nevill with his own substantive writerly talents might be able to specify. You’ve seen the cover. Is that what it looks like? I can’t answer that, although I’d suggest it is an image suggested to the illustrator by the author’s prose and his own imagination. One might view that cover as an illustration of not so much what lies beneath the ground as what lies beneath the face of mankind.In the afterword Nevill talks about our insignificance before a vast landscape or enormous body of water. You feel that in this novel, but you also get a sense of the beauty of both and of his own vast love for both. That sense of insignificance before the vastness of time and space are what link Nevill to H. P. Lovecraft. Elsewhere he has written about The City as a place of horror and terror, and here he finds it in the beautiful rural setting as well. I don’t think he would object if I suggested that there is something common to both city and country: us.

This is the first of Adam Nevill’s books that I have ever read and I must say that I was hooked early on. Fast paced I thought the ending most fitting. Highly recommend this book for anyone who loves the strange and terrifying!

Muitas vezes se torna demasiado descritivo e acaba por ficar cansativo.A história, em geral, é boa, mas honestamente nada extremamente interessante.Estou na metade do livro e tenho alguma dificuldade em manter a leitura, para ser honesta. Comprei este livro depois de ler outro do autor.

Not engaging enough. Too slow. It lacks the punch in Nevills previous works. Some of the situations described are predictable and ilogical.

Wicker Man meets H.P. Lovecraft. Nevill has demonstrated an ability of producing scary tale after scary tale.The Reddening is an excellent horror story that produces its effect without trying to rely on gore or the torture of innocents as a device to instill fear. While bad things do happen to good people, the novel is able to produce a feeling of imminent dread through crafting a compelling combination of tension and circumstance. This one was hard to put down.If you enjoyed The Ritual, then you will love the Reddening.

J'ai beaucoup aimé ce roman d'Adam Nevill. Il est original de par sa structure, son duo de personnages principaux, sa fin et son propos. Tout est bien mené, dans une langue élégante qui se distingue de la langue anglaise très générique et du style très visuel, trop employés dans la littérature de genre. Super.

This is basically a tale of dark folklore and ancient rites, it is also an extremely good read and very creepy in places. Some of the themes in the book are similar to Neville’s other books No One Gets Out Alive and The Ritual. You can always rely on Adam Neville to write a good horror yarn, and this is my favourite so far.After heavy storms in a quiet part of Devon, a paraglider notices a fissure in the cliffs. Investigating, he discovers a cave and evidence of an old Neolithic settlement. The discoveries are startling and disturbing; cave paintings of strange animals, cannibalism on a large scale and elaborate burial rites. Strange figurines are discovered of dog headed women; these ancients also had a rather unpleasant habit of recycling old bones as drinking vessels.Lifestyle journalist, Kat, is covering the story, and afterwards has strange dreams and thoughts of these ancient cave dwellers and their forgotten Gods. She and partner, Steve, also meet up with Helene at an exhibition about the caves. Helene is in the area trying to make sense of her brother’s suicide. He had recorded weird sounds near the vicinity of the caves, shortly before his demise.It soon transpires that the ancient ways are not totally forgotten in this neck of the wood. Some of the local’s focus is on something that still seems to dwell in the caves below. Something that lived side by side with the early cave dwellers.The details about the “something” and the ancient settlement are tantalisingly scant. It is pre-history, lost in time and going back aeons.The story explores the usual tribal elements of humanity, the brutality under the mask of civilisation. I thought it went further than that though and the hard, ruthless, calculating cynicism near the end left me wondering who was exploiting what.The description of the Devon landscape was also a world away from the usual image of rolling hills and coastline. It was dark, bleak and savage, inhospitable and timeless. Adam Neville did a very good job of making the reader (this one anyway), feel their insignificance against the vast backdrop of time and landscape.