This post was submitted by former TNG contributor, Craig Laurance Gidney.

The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Roc Penguin)

The autobiographical novel, or roman á clef, is a staple of ‘literary’ fiction. The Red Tree, by lesbian horror/science fiction author Caitlin R. Kiernan adds supernatural and other genre tropes to what appears to be a semi-autobiographical novel, to stunning effect. Over the past decade, Kieran’s fiction has always featured aspects of her real-life—such as her training a paleontologist, her sexuality, her involvement with gothic-industrial subculture, and ultimately, where she lives—to her psychological horror novels. Past fictions, set in the modern South (often Birmingham, Alabama) dealt with a milieu of slacker-musicians as they battle with demons both figurative (drug addiction, mental issues) and literal (from serial killers to supernatural horrors). These works had a soupçon of Southern Gothic grotesquerie combined with immediacy, as they were often told in present tense. Kiernan recently moved to Rhode Island, and the Northern Gothic tradition, from Native American legends to the work of Lovecraft, has begun to insinuate it into her work. Staggeringly prolific, Kiernan wrote the Sirena Digest, an email-based subscription series of bizarre erotic flash fiction. One of the pieces appears here, in a slightly altered form.

Written in the form of a diary, The Red Tree is set in Rhode Island, where the author Sarah Crowe has rented out a house, both to escape a recent tragedy—the suicide of her lover in Atlanta—and to work on a long overdue manuscript. The brunette nubile nymphet on the cover of the book bears little resemblance to the actual character Crowe in the book. Sarah Crowe is a chain-smoking, 44 year old bitter woman. In fact, she is downright unlikable at times, as she is full of negativity and armed with a variety of prickly self-defense mechanisms. Upon moving into the small house at the height of summer, she finds an old typewriter in the basement, and upon further exploration, a sub-basement that has an uncompleted manuscript by the former tenant of the house, Dr. Charles L. Harvey. Crowe begins using the typewriter, in spite of having a laptop, and Harvey’s reams of unused onionskin paper. She avoids working by writing a journal and reading Harvey’s manuscript. The manuscript concerns Harvey’s research on the legends surrounding the huge red oak that grows on the property. The novel follows Crowe’s slow decline into madness.

Kiernan mixes Crowe’s increasingly erratic journal entries with excerpts from Harvey’s unfinished research, which compiles the history of the tree from Puritan times to modern times. Dry academic prose, describing supernatural occurrences, ranging from strange animal sightings (Wendigos) to possessions and serial killers, alternate with Crowe’s fractured memories of a failed relationship and her chronic illness (epilepsy). It’s a metatextual mind-fuck. There are even excerpts from Crowe’s own fiction.

Readers expecting a straightforward horror story might be disappointed. The Red Tree is more along lines of such novels as The House of Leaves (Mark Danielewski) and We Have Always Lived In The Castle (Shirley Jackson). The horror occurs at the corner of the eye, with creepy hallucinations and suggestions. Crowe is a frustrating, unreliable narrator. The tree itself isn’t as menacing as much as the texts and the typewriter. Kiernan’s prose manages to be both razor-sharp and lush.

The Red Tree is marketed with the sort of cover that is currently popular in the paranormal romance/urban fantasy explosion that’s going on in publishing (thanks to the Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood franchise). A hot, tough chick glares at the viewer from a fog-bound spooky landscape. That, and the back cover copy, hides the essential-to-the-story lesbian erotic content of the book. (And this is not ‘lesbians for straight men’ fiction). Combined with the experimental structure of the text, this adds a subversive edge to the work. Kiernan’s novel isn’t a pleasant reading experience, but like the titular tree itself, it is a haunting, harrowing and ultimately irresistible one.

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