Hare-raiser: Andrew Michael Hurley returns with "Starve Acre"

Hare-Raiser 

"Starve Acre" by Andrew Michael Hurley 

A review

And so, the secret is out.  Starve Acre, originally issued by Dead Ink Books as part of their Eden Book Society series, was not written by the elusive (by which read “fictional”) 1970s author Jonathan Buckley, but is, in fact, Andrew Michael Hurley's third novel.  Starve Acre is now being published by John Murray under Hurley’s name and with new cover art.  Having enjoyed Buckley’s horror novella, I was eager to read this version, curious to discover whether it would be an expanded take on the original.

As it turns out, I would say that around 85% of the text of the two novels is identical, such that the forthcoming version of Starve Acre is less a reworking than a variant of the previous edition.  There is an important difference, which I’ll come to later but, in essence, the book remains the same: to quote Hurley himself, a work “very much in the folk horror tradition”, about “how grief strips the world into two”. So, if you’ve already read my review of the Eden Book Society edition, bear with me: there will be some repetition which, in the circumstances, I trust can be forgiven.

Starve Acre’s protagonists are Richard and Juliette, a couple who have lost their only son, Ewan, and are trying to get to grips with this tragic, life-changing event.  Whilst Juliette believes that Ewan lives on in their house in rural Yorkshire, Richard, an archaeologist by profession, becomes obsessed with the sterile field contiguous to this house, and what lies buried beneath its dark soil. 

The Eden Book Society series is based on the fictional premise that its books were written back in the 1970s.  True to that brief, the original story contained some period-specific references which suggest that decade (such as Richard working on a typewriter and the conspicuous lack of mention of more recent technologies such as mobile phones).  This ‘historical’ backdrop has been retained.  However, in true folk horror tradition, the evil which lurks within the pages of the novel is ancient and timeless – an age-old shadow which is at one with the landscape and soil, an arcane folk figure which has terrified the villagers for centuries and which returns to curse the ‘city outsiders’ who naively try to live a dream of a simple country life.  

This evil is nudged back to existence after Hurley’s protagonists, Richard and Juliette relocate from Leeds to the rural house which used to belong to Richard’s parents. Richard is not too keen on this move, particularly since it evokes memories of his father’s final mental breakdown.  Juliette, however, fantasizes about their little son Ewan playing with the village children, and about raising a family of rascally young Willoughbys far from the hustle and bustle of the city.  These dreams are shattered when Ewan dies in circumstances which remain vague and unexplained.  Juliette falls into a debilitating depression, whereas Richard, like his father before him, spends days digging in the soil of the neighbouring “Starve Acre”, unearthing what look like the roots of an ancient “hanging tree” and the bones of a large hare.  A well-meaning neighbour introduces the couple to a local mystic who conducts a séance-like ceremony in the house.  It all goes horribly wrong, leading to the novella’s chilling denouement. 

The story’s narrative is deftly handled, shifting seamlessly between the grief-soaked present of the Willoughbys, flashbacks to Ewan’s disturbed final months and half-remembered legends of bogeymen of English folklore. 

At first I struggled to detect any notable novelty in this edition of Starve Acre, except for a subplot concerning Richard’s mother, which helps to reinforce the us-and-them mentality of the village folk.  The major – and quite surprising – difference comes at the very end.  I would not like to give the game away and so what I will reveal is that whilst the new version of Starve Acre is not as graphically violent as the original edition, it achieves an equally powerful climax by shifting to the final pages one of the most disturbing and hair/hare-raising images of the novella. 

If anything, this new ending emphasizes a sense of ambiguity which the novella shares with some classic ghost and horror stories including, to name just one famous example, Oliver Onions’ The Beckoning Fair One. Thus, Starve Acre can be read literally as a supernatural tale or, at another level, as a study of a descent into madness and obsession, its otherworldly elements merely the morbid imaginings of sick minds.  Either way, Hurley continues to confirm his status as the current master of folk horror.

Hardcover, 304 pages

Expected publication: October 31st 2019 by John Murray