The Pale Flesh of Wood
While historical fiction isn’t usually my top choice of genre, I was intrigued by this one’s description and setting. A Northern California native, I don’t always see this region represented in literature (outside of San Francisco, which often steals the show). This was described as being “set among the fault-prone landscape of Northern California.” It ended up being a little more adjacent to the Bay Area than I originally thought, but that’s on me for assuming I knew which fault-lines the description meant.
This is the story of Lyla and her family from the years following WWII into her adult life in the 1980s. The main premise is a triggering one as it tracks the presence of an enormous oak tree in her grandmother’s backyard upon which her father, Charles, takes his own life one November. It’s a story of grief and generational trauma, of the impact Charles’s loss has on Lyla, her mother, and her grandmother, and the feelings each of these family members has when staring down the centerpiece of their loss—the tree with the pale flesh of wood marking the branch where a rope hung.
I wanted to see how the family interacted throughout the years. I was invested in Lyla’s character. The snapshots of different moments, including the opening when she is encouraged, nearly bullied, by her father to climb the tree and hang the tire swing, were framed interestingly. I wanted to keep reading. However, I struggled with the non-linear timeline and had to keep flipping back to make sure I knew what year it was at the opening of each chapter. I also felt some emotional distance from the characters despite such delicate material. I’m not sure if that was my personal brain space or the writing itself.
The bottom line: This was a good family saga that I’d recommend to the right audience. Not perfectly my taste, but still worthwhile.
Thank you to NetGalley and She Writes Press for the DRC of this title. All thoughts are my genuine reading experience.
