Winterwood

Written by Patrick McCabe

Narrated by Gerry O'Brien

Highly acclaimed suspense writer Patrick McCabe has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for both The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto. He has been hailed as "a dark genius of incongruity and the grotesque" by the Sunday Observer. In Winterwood, Redmond Hatch takes his family on vacation to the secluded mountains where he grew up, only to have his life shattered by a disastrous chain of events that quickly spirals out of control. "One of Ireland's finest ..."-New York Times Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 15, 2009
• ISBN: 9781436162159

Patrick McCabe

Patrick McCabe was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, in 1955. His other novels include The Butcher Boy, The Dead School, and Call Me the Breeze. With director Neil Jordan, he co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of The Butcher Boy.

Reviews for Winterwood

[nx74defiant · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An odd story. It goes back and forth in time. A lot of things are never spelled out. There is much left unanswered. He uses the F word too much. But I enjoyed listening to it.

[icolford · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Once upon a time Raymond Hatch was living the dream: a blissful family life with his beautiful wife Catherine and their daughter Imogen. He was a bit older than Catherine, but no matter. Otherwise they were the picture of modern Irish middle-class prosperity. Until Raymond, a journalist, decided to return to his roots, to his mountain home of Slievenageeha, to conduct research into the region's folklore. Here he meets Ned Strange, the repository of the mountain's traditional songs and folktales who, with his voice and fiddle and habitual yarn-spinning, has seduced the locals into thinking he something that he is not. Raymond spends days interviewing Ned, and is never the same afterward. Because the stories that Ned tells unleash terrible memories, memories that Raymond has spent his whole life trying to suppress. Suppressed memory is at the crux of McCabe's story. Raymond is weak, and is no match for the conniving, verbose, sinister Ned Strange, who awakens in Raymond detestable impulses that Raymond never suspected he harbored. There is great potential here for a chilling drama leading to an explosive climax. But, strangely enough, Patrick McCabe declines to satisfy his readers' expectations, imposing on his narrative a convoluted circular structure that meanders into something of a blind alley. The novel's ending will leave most readers scratching their head. Winterwood contains flashes of the author's brilliance. But for readers who want to enjoy McCabe's darkly humorous vision without the confusing narrative structure, The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto are better bets.

[edwinbcn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The scariest horror movies are the ones where much is left unsaid, where the viewer's imagination is enticed to fill in the gaps. Likewise, great fiction thrives by suspense, and Patrick McCabe is a master of this type of fiction.The book tells the life story of Redmond Hatch, a journalist investigating the old traditions or Ireland. Hatch is a sinister character, with a shady past, a shady life, and a shady future. Tips of the veil over his past are lifted, showing a history of violently disgusting child abuse, the memories of which are triggered by chocolate and its silver paper wrapping. Hatch leads a hidden life, changed his job, appearance and identity, stalking, and finally kidnapping and murdering his wife and little daughter. And his future, after forsaking this world of pain, "attired in (a) fine carved suit of boards".Throughout the book, our attention is drawn to the close bond between Ned Strange and Redmond Hatch. Their names are near identical, "hatch" meaning "strange", while "Redmond" is very close to "Edmund" (Ned's name). There are many other links between the two men, and Redmond "sees" him in various places around. Finally, we get the feeling that they are the same, a feeling which is extended to other "Auld Pappies", whether red-headed or named Hatch. Extreme evil, violence and disgust, further fuel the idea that Ned Strange is in fact the devil, whose evilness is slumbering all over the auld country, in the form of bloodsucking vampires. I lost count of the number of characters in the book, flashing their incisors...To earn 5-star rating a book should trigger a physical response in me, some strong emotion. In the case of Winterwood that was a shiver. This is the first book since American Psycho that has given me a nightmare, and various images from the book keep coming back to me. While American Psycho is explicit in its descriptions of horror, this book is all suspense. Incredible disgust, incredible violence, incredible horror. I have linked the book to Dracula. I've read two other books by McCabe but find this one, so very much different from the other books, by far superior.

[candyschultz · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you can wrap your head around this story without breaking your neck you are a better man than I. This is my first McCabe novel and after finishing I had to read all the reviews I could find in an attempt to understand it. Apparently it is a metaphor for modern Ireland but somehow that went right past me. You could read this as a ghost story but I am still not sure how many ghosts there were. It definitely has something to say about child sexual abuse and not a few digs are given at the roman catholic priest travesty which has only garnered attention of late. It is also obviously one man's (or perhaps two or three) descent into madness. For me the jury is out on McCabe. I will have to read at least one other novel before I decide.

[piratejenny_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One (professional) reviewer said he felt like he needed to take a bath after reading this book. I really have to agree with him. This was a wonderfully written book, the words just rolled off the page with the lyricism of a poet. But dear god it creeped me out, and not in a good way. Mind you, I *like* being creeped out. I love ghost stories. But the ghost of Ned Strange just inhabits the book the way he inhabits Redmond and it might leave you up at night. So while I give this book high marks for the writing and for getting inside the head of someone possessed by the horrors of a dead man and driven to, well, things, I'm not entirely sure I can actually recommend this book to many people. It depends on what the reader can take.

[lisalynne_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A book of many layers - this story tells a bit, then circles back to tell a bit more and each time, the story becomes more horrifying. What appears at first to be the story of a happily married man returning to write a story about his childhood home becomes a multi-generational story of lies, abuse and murder. Early on you think you know who's who and what's what, but I guarantee that as the story unravels your whole perspective will change.I strongly recommend that you pick this up on audio if at all possible. The reader is exceptionally talented and to get the full effect of the Irish accents, the Celtic songs and placenames, you really need a native speaker. This is one of those occasions where a good reader really improves the whole story.

[mikefarquhar · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Where Gough represents one extreme of Irish fiction running from Flann O’Brien through Father Ted, Patrick McCabe’s Winterwood shows an Ireland of a very different sort. Redmond Hatch, for a time, had a happy life – married to his beautiful wife Catherine, holding down a mundane job as a reporter, and whiling away hours playing imaginary games with his young daughter. However when his own barely suppressed failings, followed by his wife’s infidelity, come to the fore, Hatch’s life falls apart and he ends up drifting through London and Dublin.Underpinning the story of domestic breakdown though is Redmond’s relationship with Ned Strange, a seemingly benign old man from Redmond’s home village in the Irish mountains, who Redmond has met some years previously when researching stories on traditional Irish life. Strange takes on an odd power for Redmond, as he becomes entwined with him to a degree that is never absolutely clear, and when Strange is subsequently disgraced and commits suicide, the effect on Redmond is profound.From the twin insults of domestic breakdown and Strange’s fall, the first-person narrative becomes increasingly unreliable as Redmond’s mind fractures under the strain and we are presented with a loosely coherent collection of memories and stories, the past and present bubbling through each other, all seemingly pieced together into a whole. As Redmond appears to rebuild his life, with a new identity, a new highly successful career in television and a new wife, there are glances into a parallel story, far darker, seeping into the cracks of his existence, that always seems to hang nebulously, tantalisingly, just out of reach.McCabe has written a hugely accomplished book. The unreliable first-person narrative serves to disquiet as you read, unsettling and adding to the darkly looming air of doom that builds oppressively through the book. McCabe manipulates the book’s internal chronology to hugely powerful effect, as it becomes difficult to tease out which events have precipitated others as Redmond’s recollection flows from point to point. McCabe’s skill though is in creating that feeling of unsettledness without sacrificing the flow of the book.It’s not an enjoyable book – you feel stained black to the soul after reading it – but it is an eerie, powerful read that captivates to the bitter end.

[adamallen · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Winterwood is my first novel by Patrick McCabe and one that I picked up due to the reviews of his previous work, The Butcher Boy, and admittedly, the cover design. It looked dark and demented - hell, I was game. I find that in recent years, publishers have gotten better at marketing through cover designs and these reflect the book's theme and style quite well. This was true of Winterwood also.I found the book to be good, but nothing special. I have no doubt that many would disagree with me as the book has its moments of engagement. Personally, I found the desultory story to be confusing and frustrating. (It's described on the inside cover as "fractured lyricism".) Given that the book is about a man who is mentally unstable, I feel confident that it was written this way for effect - to live in his mind - but it makes for a painful read. I'm not one for reading into the next paragraph and wondering "what the hell just happened" because the author just jumped back 10 years with no transition. Two pages later, you're trying to figure out where you just landed yet again. The other thing I found somewhat frustrating was McCabe's veiled disclosures. He doesn't just tell you some of the things he wants you to know (i.e. who is who and what role they actually play in the story). While that's great for most novels (I love a book that makes you think), it's frustrating when you're spending your time just trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Maybe I'm just thick.Now that I've seemingly bashed it, I will say that the book delivers on the darkness that I was looking for. It's a topic that for many would be difficult to swallow and its a bold book for covering it (I'll reveal the topic in the spoilers if you're that interested). McCabe has skills in painting a mental image that would bother the sensitive or prudish reader. The book has its moments and it's bold, hence my rating.**SPOILER ALERT (Highlight)**Our main character is journalist Redmond Hatch, mountain man turned city dweller, who has returned home to do a story on his mountain town and one of its star inhabitants, "Auld Pappie" Ned Strange. Ned is a mountain man in every way but one quickly learns that despite outward appearances, he's also evil to the core. He's a child molester, a killer, and he has no remorse. What we later find is that Redmond is the same. He is just so delusional that the reader is left to piece that together. Due to the things he's done, Redmond changes his identity and career (multiple times), remarries, causes the disappearance of his own daughter, and falls in and out of love with the two women in his life. One minute he seems perfectly normal and the next, he's being molested (not in detail) by Ned Strange or he's drugging and killing his daughter (again, not in detail). Yes, the book is packed with iniquities.Ultimately, Redmond becomes Auld Pappie (even going by that monicker) and lives a full life. At the point of his death, the truth is discovered by the police as to his identity but it is too late. Redmond has died and is being buried into the arms of "Auld Pappie" Ned Strange.