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| The Dark Wood - (period book club edition) |
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| Photo of author Christine Weston |
I recently completed The Dark Wood by Christine Weston originally published in 1946 by Scribner's. The story centers upon three people who lives intersect during one summer in NYC. First, we are introduced to Regan and Mark Bycroft. Mark is a returning WWII veteran who comes back to find that his wife wants a divorce because she has fallen in love with someone else.
Next, the reader encounters Stella Harmon, a war widow who can not get over the loss of her husband Alec. Depressed and listless, she can hardly makes an effort to get through the day. She's been a widow for two years now.
One day she encounters Mark sitting in a bar and is shocked by the physical resemblance between him and her dead husband. Her friend Miriam also sees the resemblance but not as strongly.
Here is how Weston describes one of Mark and Stella's early meetings: "She met his gaze, and to Mark it seemed as is she were perilously near to committing herself, and to him, to further responsibilities. In another mood, with another woman, he might have welcomed the danger out of sheer loneliness, but while this woman attracted him, she strangely repelled him. His feeling towards her were not whole feelings, and passion for her died almost at the moment of inspiration."
The lives of Stella and Mark now begin to intertwine and eventually they start a relationship. Of course all is not smooth sailing. Mark does not want Stella and her friends to see / treat him as some carbon copy of her deceased husband. Does she really love him or is he just a stand in for Alec?
Weston weaves together the characters' inner thoughts with dialogue and description in a seamless and non-obtrusive way. You get to know their inner thoughts and feelings but only as it relates to the plot. The Dark Wood is not a stream of consciousness novel! Reviewers of the day classified it as a psychological novel. I agree and would simply say it's a very good read.
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