The House in Dormer Forest

Dormer is an old house with Elizabethan  origins, much added to. It sits, very isolated,  in a cup of the Shropshire hills, surrounded  by forest. The Darke family have lived there  for centuries. Solomon Darke is a squire  farmer who tends to unthinking  conservatism; his wife Rachel is harsh, fierce  and uncompromising. They have four  children – the eldest is the sensitive and  original Amber, who feels, at thirty, that life  has passed her by. Her brothers Jasper and  Peter are more strong-willed – Jasper  questions all around him in a determined  but romantic way, while Peter has no time  for any fuss and forcefully seeks simple  pleasures. Their younger sister Ruby is  biddable, nave and full of laughter.  Rachel Darke’s ancient mother lives with  them, a harridan remnant in ringlets and  flounces, dominating this already intense  family with savage outbursts and calculating  glances. Completing the family is Catherine,  a young relative of Rachel and her mother, whose icy beauty has entrapped Jasper, and  whose cold passions equal in power the heat  of the Darkes’.  A complex web of personal desires and long  held antipathies becomes activated in the  first instance by Jasper’s return home,  having been expelled from college for his  rejection of religion. As hoped-for alliances  collapse, dubious loves flower, well-laid  plans go awry, and thwarted yearnings erupt  into flame, this singular family and all  around them are drawn into a seeming  vortex which threatens to carry all with it to  destruction.  Mary Webb’s personality shared a great deal  with that of Emily Brontë, in terms not only  of her love of nature and its kindling power,  but also of her openness to the fullness of  ardency. In this extraordinary third novel  she delved this self profoundly, also  introducing, in a way she hadn’t before,  leavening humour and cool analysis of character to balance this modern gothic  vehemence. The House in Dormer Forest is heady and fascinating, risking a great deal and triumphing uniquely.