The Green Man of Eshwood Hall
Jacob Kerr
Serpent’s Tail 2022
Hb, 212pp, £14.99, ISBN 9781800811492
Strange, disturbing, sometimes disorientating and more than a bit scary, with strong mythological elements, is the essence of folk horror. Izzy is 13; she has just moved with her family, in 1962, to Eshwood Hall in Northalbion, a mythical version of Northumber-land, where her father will be a general handyman for the old lady who lives there. She has an eight-year-old sister and a baby brother, and her mother is domineering and selfish; she claims to have heart trouble, so Izzy has to do all the cooking and cleaning and looking after the baby, to constant sniping from her mother. In an old deserted
