The Red Tree
The Red Tree book cover

The Red Tree

Kindle Edition

by
Price
$6.99
Publisher
Ace
Publication Date

Description

“[Caitlín Kiernan has] a gift for language that borders on the scary. Deeply, wonderfully, magnificently nasty.”—Neil Gaiman“Kiernan’s chiller provides a strange and vastly compelling take on a New England haunting, and captures its spirit unnervingly well.”— Booklist “[Kiernan’s] most personal, ambitious, and accomplished work yet.” — Locus “A suspenseful tale that feeds the imagination and blurs the line of reality.” —Darque Reviews“With its intelligent blend of folklore, horror, and dark fantasy, Kiernan’s latest appeals well beyond urban fantasy fans.”— Library Journal “Dark-fantasy specialist Kiernan delivers a creepy and engaging tale…Horror fans will recognize the familiar Lovecraftian gothic-horror elements—indeed, Lovecraft, Poe, and other writers are explicitly referenced in the text—but Kiernan’s prose is thoroughly modern…She ably keeps the proceedings from developing into formula, and her portrayals of Sarah’s growing obsession, and the violence surrounding the tree, are evocative and chilling. A multileveled novel that will appeal to fans of classic and modern horror.”— Kirkus Reviews “Kiernan’s dark tale blurs the lines between illusion and reality in this multilayered novel. The characters are complex and deeply flawed, and the beautiful and uninhibited prose easily evokes the dread they experience.”— Romantic Times “Kiernan does a great job of evoking the terror of not knowing what is real and what is imagined…a layered, atmospheric tale.”—Fantasy Literature xa0 “[Kiernan] still remains the only author who manages to truly evoke [Lovecraft] sensations of dread while at the same time managing to do so in a voice entirely her own.”—King of the Nerds Caitlin R. Kiernan is the author of nine novels, including Silk, Threshold, Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, Daughter of Hounds , and The Red Tree . Her award-winning short fiction has been collected in six volumes, including Tales of Pain and Wonder; To Charles Fort, With Love; Alabaster; and, most recently, A is for Alien . She has also published two volumes of erotica, Frog Toes and Tentacles and Tales from the Woeful Platypus . Trained as a vertebrate paleontologist, she currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Features & Highlights

  • Sarah Crowe left Atlanta—and the remnants of a tumultuous relationship—to live in an old house in rural Rhode Island. Within its walls she discovers an unfinished manuscript written by the house’s former tenant—an anthropologist obsessed with the ancient oak growing on a desolate corner of the property.   Tied to local legends of supernatural magic, as well as documented accidents and murders, the gnarled tree takes root in Sarah’s imagination, prompting her to write her own account of its unsavory history.     And as the oak continues to possess her dreams and nearly almost all her waking thoughts, Sarah risks her health and her sanity to unearth a revelation planted centuries ago…

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(91)
★★★★
25%
(76)
★★★
15%
(46)
★★
7%
(21)
★
23%
(70)

Most Helpful Reviews

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A lack of answers preserves the mystery

There are no spoilers in this review.

For Halloween last year, Dan gave me my first Caitlin Kiernan book, Threshold. I enjoyed it, so when I got my credit card rewards this month, I bought another Kiernan novel. I pretty much chose it at random. So here comes my review of The Red Tree!

It's a good thing that Dan warned me to expect very Lovecraftian reads. The Red Tree, like Threshold, will not deliver answers or even ever tell the reader what the hell was going on. We're just along for the scary ride. Understanding and expecting that makes Kiernan a much better read.

The characters (or maybe that should be singular) didn't really hit home for me, even though the main one was an author. She's a very bitter, very pessimistic woman... not unlike myself, really, but not the parts I really like to read about.

However, that leads me into perhaps the most interesting part of The Red Tree - the writing. The novel is written as a journal kept by the author. It's introduced by her fictional editor, who has a cold, dry style. This leads into the author's own voice. Then she finds another manuscript in the basement and enters pages from it, all written in a scholar's voice. The scholar, in turn, references and quotes older, more folksy and archaic texts.

It's interesting to read and must have been a challenge to write. As the author loses her mind, the different styles bleed together, making it hard to differentiate who is writing and adding very well to the sense of growing insanity. Well done!

It was creepy and a good read, full of eerie tension and surprisingly frighting imagery. I feel I must warn readers, however, that The Red Tree is a bit sexually explicit. The sex scenes are short and don't go into protracted detail, but Kiernan pulls no punches.
9 people found this helpful
✓ Verified Purchase

A lack of answers preserves the mystery

There are no spoilers in this review.

For Halloween last year, Dan gave me my first Caitlin Kiernan book, Threshold. I enjoyed it, so when I got my credit card rewards this month, I bought another Kiernan novel. I pretty much chose it at random. So here comes my review of The Red Tree!

It's a good thing that Dan warned me to expect very Lovecraftian reads. The Red Tree, like Threshold, will not deliver answers or even ever tell the reader what the hell was going on. We're just along for the scary ride. Understanding and expecting that makes Kiernan a much better read.

The characters (or maybe that should be singular) didn't really hit home for me, even though the main one was an author. She's a very bitter, very pessimistic woman... not unlike myself, really, but not the parts I really like to read about.

However, that leads me into perhaps the most interesting part of The Red Tree - the writing. The novel is written as a journal kept by the author. It's introduced by her fictional editor, who has a cold, dry style. This leads into the author's own voice. Then she finds another manuscript in the basement and enters pages from it, all written in a scholar's voice. The scholar, in turn, references and quotes older, more folksy and archaic texts.

It's interesting to read and must have been a challenge to write. As the author loses her mind, the different styles bleed together, making it hard to differentiate who is writing and adding very well to the sense of growing insanity. Well done!

It was creepy and a good read, full of eerie tension and surprisingly frighting imagery. I feel I must warn readers, however, that The Red Tree is a bit sexually explicit. The sex scenes are short and don't go into protracted detail, but Kiernan pulls no punches.
9 people found this helpful
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So awful, I can't finish

After reading some reviews and the sample, I downloaded the entire book. I'm sorry I wasted the money, and the time! I'm more than half-way through it and I just can't force myself to read more. I love a good mystery, horror or ghost story - my favorite reads - but this is just horrible. The main character, Sarah, is so miserable and foul-mouthed; I found it impossible to have any empathy for her whatsoever. The writing is disjointed, difficult to follow and boring. I've just been waiting to get to the point where she gets it over with and she dies (not a spoiler, the book starts off with her dead). I've never read any other books by this author, but it appears that she has quite a following; just not me.
9 people found this helpful
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The Red Tree

I read the whole book tho' I don't know why. I didn't like it at all. I didn't understand all the angst and I didn't know why she insisted on our knowing her sexual preference. I don't think it really mattered. Not interested in reading anymore of her books.
3 people found this helpful
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Not as good as the reviews suggest

This book had been on my wishlist for quite some time, and finally I treated myself to it. Although, after finishing I wouldn't call it much of a treat. This is a book that I WANTED to keep reading, because I hoped it would get better, but a little over 100 pages in I could already tell what the "big reveal" would be, not only that but this moves at a snails pace. It just isn't entertaining. The narration is through a found "journal" and it just isn't fun to read. Because the main character of the novels states she tends to digress, doesnt mean that I continuously want to read it. Im not saying don't pick this up, because obviously quite a few people enjoyed it, Im just letting you know, personally I found nothing about this terrifying, creepy, or even entertaining, all in all, i found it boring.
3 people found this helpful
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“I know the ugly faces the moon makes when it thinks no one is watching.”

This book.. I liked it..but it was very...different. Let's start with the easiest to talk about, the characters. They are not very likable people. Sarah and Constance are very argumentative and snarky (in a bad way).
The journal entry format, I liked that and found it made the book go by faster. !! There is something in the editor's preface that I consider a huge spoiler. Unfortunately, I did not know about this and read it first as it's at the start of the book. As soon as I read it, I stopped and went to the chapter 1. I went back and read it after I finished. Be sure to read the foot notes. They clear up some things.
Ok, now the story. Sarah retreats to this house in Rhode Island after her lover (Amanda) commits suicide. She plans on getting some writing done and healing. While exploring, she finds an unfinished manuscript from the previous renter, Dr. Charles Harvey. He was researching the local folklore and legend about a red oak tree on the property. I loved the history of the tree! Those parts were great. One day, the landlord calls and tells her he has rented out the attic. Enter Constance. She's an artist as well (painting) and unlike Sarah, she knows about the legend of the tree. After Constance arrival, it's all mixed up. It gets harder and harder for Sarah (and us) to make sense of what's going on. What is real and just a dream. The line between the two is blurred. The descent into chaos just gets more and more bizarre until the end. I liked the ending. Like I said, I went back and read the editor's preface here.
So yeah, this was an odd one but I liked it. If your not a fan of unreliability and blurred realities, you may want to skip this one.
1 people found this helpful
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Slow-moving read

I wanted to love this story...I really did. It had an interesting premise: a tree with a sinister past that has seen suicides and murders, a house with a mysterious basement...

Unfortunately, the story itself meanders and it makes it difficult to get fully immersed in the story. The main character, Sarah Crowe, curses a lot - really, a LOT - which doesn't bother me a bit, but may offend some readers, so if the F-word bothers you, skip this book. There are also some graphic sex descriptions that more sensitive readers might want to avoid.

I got the impression the author was going for a Blair Witch feel with the story - that is, implied horror more than outward horror. However, the excessive wordiness of the narrative makes the effort fall a little flat. I feel like this was an average read that could have been much better if the narrative was tightened up and trimmed down a bit.
1 people found this helpful
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Great read if you're willing to think!

WARNING: Don't take the ending at face value. It may be a grand revelation of truth or it may simply be another deception! At its simplest, it may be a story about a woman so stricken with grief that she quietly loses her mind and projects her psychoses onto the world around her...including the tree. At its most sinister, it's a story of an ancient evil that ensnares its prey by infiltrating their mind in order to survive. What is real? What is deception? Therein lies the absolute beauty of this story!

Wonderfully written and very engaging towards the end.
1 people found this helpful
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This book is highly intelligent, creepy and spooky

Don't judge a book by its cover. This book is highly intelligent, creepy and spooky. A good read even for someone who does not usually read "horror" novels. But seriously, this cover is awful. After reading the book our entire bookclub could not identify which character that was supposed to be on the cover!
1 people found this helpful
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Spooky and compelling

I found this to be quite scary in some parts! I really enjoyed the narrator's voice, as well as the lesbian characters. I found it to be a unique take on the typical haunted house/land story. Overall a great read! I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a spooky read.

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