Hemlock Grove

Hemlock Grove
by
Brian McGreevy
read by
Sean Runnette

This book came into my hot little hands thanks to the internet. Apparently, they're making a television show based on it. You know who 'they' are. A site that I regularly read pointed out the fact and got me thinking about the book. It also got my friend thinking about and she, luckily for me, knew that I could get the audio version.
Taking a break from one long book and ready to dive into another long one, I thought it might be nice for a break - something I could listen to in a day or two. Reading that McGreevy was attempting to redefine what is considered a Gothic novel piques my curiosity and I got about listening.
I almost didn't make it. Several times throughout the first disk I kept telling myself, "must give it at least one full disk". But even at the end of the first disk, I almost didn't put in the second. This is one of those times that doing the audiobook came and bit me in the butt. The book turns out to be great, and in fact was very good from the beginning. What I was having a hard time with was the presentation by Mr. Runnette. The narrator should have been voiced by a younger sounding voice. The main characters are high school aged boys, and Runnette's voice sounds like what you would expect their father's older brother to sound like. That in and of itself is not a turn-off, I mean just think of the absolutely wonderful job Jim Dale does with the Harry Potter books, but that was not the only detraction in the presentation. Runnette sounded so very tired and was lacking in both energy and enthusiasm. Many of the main characters are young and a couple are down-right spunky, but the reading was plodding and it really took until probably the fourth disk to get the hand of it and accept that sometimes the story is worth it to deal with a lousy presentation.
I don't want to make it sound like Runnette is horrible, he's not. His enunciation is clear and he is consistent. He just wasn't the right reader for this book.
McGreevy actually makes his approach to Gothic and the supernatural seem fresh. He does this by letting our understanding of what is happening grow organically and you often find yourself suspecting something long before you know it. I say suspect because not everything is how it seems to be. Personally, I tend to love world-building books that put as much time into developing the background as they do the story. This is not one of those books. At times, especially in the beginning of the story, it was hard to tell just how supernatural the book was versus how gullible or naive the young characters are. Eventually you come to realize that the vast majority of people, especially adults, do not believe in supernatural creatures and for a while you flirt with the idea that some of it or maybe even all of it is in the head of a couple of the characters, feeding off of each other's imagination.
There are some nice touches in this tale. One of the more obvious jokes is the name of the younger sister of one of the main characters - Shelly happens to be a seven foot tall behemoth of dead flesh made living by a scientific process. The joke, or perhaps it's commentary, that is made several times throughout the book is that werewolves and the undead may be bad, but this one is an actress! I also liked that McGreevy wrote about Pennsylvania. He gives Hemlock Grove a real sense of place, which is especially important considering the lineage of one of the main characters being descended from Gypsies.
Add this book to your list of genre books to read, but forget about the audiobook. I see from the cover of the audiobook that McGreevy is involved with the adaptation of this story to the small screen and I hope that goes well for him, but that he comes back to writing novels. I look forward to seeing more from him.

Hemlock Grove available at Amazon
Hemlock Grove Audiobook available at Amazon