Praise for Northwood
"In Northwood, Maryse Meijer artfully explores themes of pain, desire, and the meeting place of the two, for a surreal, fairytale–esque accounting of what happens when we go to the darkest places within ourselves, and within others."" —NYLON
"In Northwood, Meijer stitches together prose and verse into an unnerving, mesmerizing portrait of a violent relationship. The book borrows imagery and ideas from fairy tales, Greek mythology, and Tarot." —Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe
"Readers are pulled into a tumultuous relationship with phrases that probe a contained emotional history, to evoke a pathos that lasts the length of the novella . . . The vulnerability, slicing for its exposition and lyricism, sweeps us in; we cannot refuse reading, returning, and reflecting." —Kaitlyn Yates, The Arkansas International
"A gorgeous follow–up to Meijer’s devastating debut, this novella follows a young woman into the woods as she flees from violence." —Chicago Review of Books
"Instructions for reading Northwood: Clear our an hour or two. Make some tea. Shut the door, and prepare for an emotional and sensory experience. Meijer’s stunning novella blends fable with bracing realism, as well as prose with poetry, to create an intoxicating portrait of an intense love affair and its aftermath. Anyone who’s lost themselves in love of their art or in love for another person will relate to this narrator’s journey." —Refinery29
“Like the best fairy tales, Northwood shows us the clockwork that lies beneath society, but like the best modern fiction it asks us to confront our own acceptance of that society. It nudges us off safe paths and urges us further and further into the woods, and there isn’t a breadcrumb in sight.” —Tor.com
"Most books are an experience, some books act as precious objects, but occasionally—when many stars and aesthetics align—a book can be both. Maryse Meijer’s Northwood enters that slim, murky category of journey and sculpture . . . Perhaps the best part of this book is Meijer’s ability to add new dimensions to ancient cliches. She handles 'once upon a time' imagery with a careful eye for cruelty, for weirdness . . . To indulge in a couple cliches in response: This book is a page turner; you won’t be able to put it down; you’ll read it all in one go." ―Diana Valenzuela, The Millions
"Meijer blends the quotidian with the folkloric, tells much of the story in verse, and utilizes a host of formally inventive page layouts along the way . . . A visceral book . . . In telling this particular story of a life, Meijer takes abundant risks, and in the end the work she’s created is a singular and gripping one." —Tobias Carroll, Vol. 1 Brooklyn
"Maryse Meijer’s fiction bristles with intensity, ambiguity, and harrowing moments . . . Northwood . . . features a host of bold structural risks, from its use of verse passages to some unorthodox page design. It blends the archetypal with the deeply personal, and creates something new as it goes." —Vol. 1 Brooklyn
"With incredible precision, Meijer takes traditional, known elements and manipulates them into a hybrid fable that possesses all the danger and violence of a classic Grimm narrative, creating a product that defies expectations and denies genre . . . Meijer’s deft craftsmanship and clear focus make Northwood a darkly intriguing work that is both frightening and undeniably seductive." —Jen Corrigan, The Coil
"A tale of obsessive love, Northwood interrogates fairy tale and myth, remixing familiar characters in new settings and asking what happens when we follow real–life fairy tales to their logical conclusions. Where some modern stories take a single element or story, Meijer hops from Red Riding Hood to Rapunzel, from Ovid to the Tarot, always bringing everything back to that tender spot where a sense of identity meets raw desire. And her language is simply incandescent." —Leah Schnelbach, Book Marks
"Beautifully and mysteriously told in shards . . . Some entries are poems that skip around the page physically, some read like journal entries as if she woke up halfway through a sentence, struggling to grasp the precious details of a glimpse, a lovesick memory like heroin . . . We will leave no crumbs to mark our trail when we slip into this story." —Newcity Lit
"Meijer’s fluid, strange novella is told in brief, poetic bursts . . . Even the formatting of the book belies its arresting nature; published in stark white text on black pages, wrapped in a bright red cover, the poems may stop you in your tracks." —Brit + Co
"This deft synthesis of poetry, prose, horror, and then some, forces us to examine all the little broken pieces of our culture, of ourselves, and to ask what kind of art can be made with these." —Kenyon Review
“Meijer follows an overwhelming affair and its long reach in this evocative work, constructed as a blend of poems and brief, disconnected snippets . . . Passages crackle with breathtakingly fresh images . . . This challenging but beautiful work will compel readers to fit together the pieces of the protagonist’s lingering trauma.” —Publishers Weekly
"Meijer is an expert at worldbuilding, and the narrative she spins is fractured across fairy tale, mythology, and the occult . . . Like Anne Carson or Maggie Nelson, Meijer creates her own genre, somewhere between poetry and prose, myth and reality . . . Memorable, strange, and haunting. Fans of Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, and Kate Bernheimer will find much to love in Meijer's haunted woods." —Kirkus Reviews
"This strange and beautiful novella has everything I want: formal play, myths and fairy tales, the politics of art–making, the all–obliterating power and complexity of desire, a cabin in the woods. I can’t wait to see what Maryse Meijer does next.” —Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties
"Northwood’s mesmerizing alchemy is this: pain + desire + the deep, dark woods = a book so addictive you will inhale it in one breath. Meijer has made her own form, something new and wide–open, something as blissful and broken as the language of lovesickness itself." —Samantha Hunt, author of The Dark Dark
“With all the precision, concision, and mystery of an essential Grimms’ fairy tale, the stunning passages in Mayrse Meijer’s Northwood lure us down wooded paths where woodcutter, bear, fox, moth, and lover allure and menace.The woman inside these pages draws a world as inevitable, endangered, and necessary as any Gretel or Snow White. Count me a fan of this original writer.” —Victoria Redel, author of Before Everything and Make Me Do Things
2018-09-02
A damaged young woman attempts to rebuild her life after a near-deadly affair in this eerie fable.
The speaker of Meijer's novella in poems is an artist lost inside her own wilderness. "I drew you as I used to draw myself, at first to make / more of you, later to get rid of you, and now I don't draw you / at all," she thinks as she attempts to unravel a destructive affair. Years later, she remains haunted by the woods where she once seduced a wolf with "jade eyes" and "silver hair, older than any man I'd ever thought was / beautiful." Even after she returns to the city, resumes her teaching job, and marries "a man…who takes pity on things, whose pity / leads him to love," the speaker receives dream phone calls that contain leaves rustling in the wind or erotic commands that call her back to the wild. Meijer (Heartbreaker, 2016) is an expert at worldbuilding, and the narrative she spins is fractured across fairy tale, mythology, and the occult. Broken into lines, the story becomes even more propulsive and strange—we don't get entire scenes but moments on either side of a blackout or brief glimpses into the speaker's indelible fear of losing herself to lust and violence. Like Anne Carson or Maggie Nelson, Meijer creates her own genre, somewhere between poetry and prose, myth and reality. While Meijer is sometimes stronger at creating an overall effect than at landing individual lines, the result is still memorable, strange, and haunting.
Fans of Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, and Kate Bernheimer will find much to love in Meijer's haunted woods.
