Set in West Virginia (everyone’s favorite state for backwoods traditions, it seems), The Bog Wife details a tradition held by the Haddesley family through generations. It goes something like this: when the family patriarch is dying, he must be sacrificed to the bog. His entire family must carry him to the bog on a wood plank and leave him. After his body is subsumed by the bog, the eldest son must return naked and use a dowsing rod to summon a bog wife. This bog wife emerges from the peat and marsh, and the son must spit in her mouth to give her life. Cool? Cool.
As I began reading TBW, I quickly realized that the novel takes place in the present day or relatively recent past. The oldest son Charlie picks up prodigal sister Wenna from the bus station in a car. Wenna has emailed younger brother Percy to let him know that she will return for the father’s death. The Haddesley home does not have internet, but Percy goes to the town library to check his email. Besides Charlie, Percy, and Wenna, there are two other sisters: the oldest daughter Eda and the youngest child Nora.
When Charlie goes to the bog to summon his wife after his father is subsumed, nothing happens. The covenant has been broken. The Haddesley line will die. And this is the real beginning of Kay Chronister’s book: how do these siblings relate to themselves, each other, and the world when they will lose all that they have trusted?
TBW is vividly written with an interesting and inconclusive line between ancient and modern. I occasionally found the novel’s intermingling of fantastical and realistic elements to be frustrating–anyone wanting real answers about what will happen to the Haddesley family won’t get them. Nor will the covenant myth that binds the family to the land, the house, and each other be fully debunked and cast off–that would be too satisfying. But the novel’s exploration of family dynamics and their molding by covenants, rituals, and place is nicely explored. The siblings’ distinct personalities are revealed in chapters that explore their roles in the family while furthering the storyline. I’m not fully satisfied by the way that the Haddesleys are able to live off the grid for so long in such decrepitude, but I do believe it can (and does) happen in rural locations. The novel is super atmospheric, and I loved the way that Chronister depicts the landscape, particularly the bog.
