Grey Dog
Elliott Gish
ISBN 9781770417328
400 pages
Release: April 9, 2024
Publisher: ECW Press

Young, talented, well-acquainted with 18th and 19th century gothic horror and dark fiction, Elliot Gish has launched her debut novel, which is relatively accomplished, and certainly makes for an interesting read.

What is the novel about? The marketing blurb:

The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd ― spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist ― accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past ― riddled with grief and shame ― has never seemed so far away.

But then, Ada begins to witness strange and grisly phenomena: a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun. She soon believes that something old and beastly ― which she calls Grey Dog ― is behind these visceral offerings, which both beckon and repel her. As her confusion deepens, her grip on what is real, what is delusion, and what is traumatic memory loosens, and Ada takes on the wildness of the woods, behaving erratically and pushing her newfound friends away. In the end, she is left with one question: What is the real horror? The Grey Dog, the uncontainable power of female rage, or Ada herself?

Elliott Gish herself is a writer and librarian from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and that Maritime familiarity with small villages and tight communities certainly informs much of the flavour and ambiance of the fictional world she creates. Lowry Bridge, while set near Portsmouth, England, could be any isolated community on Canada’s East Coast, particularly in the early 20th century. There is a Hardian atmosphere in this world, a brooding presence in the landscape, let alone the people. And like much of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, there are characters awash in secrets.

Gish has told Ada Byrd’s story through journal entries, not an easy format to maintain throughout an entire novel, but she does so with ease and interest. The depth of character this has allowed her is handled deftly, and while doing so Gish gives homage to some of the great Classical writers: Hardy, the Bronte sisters, even Stoker and Shelley. There is a brooding malevolence which weaves through both environmental and character descriptions, a sense there is something not quite right with some members of the village of Lowry Bridge, and the forest which abuts it. I was minded toward the end of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the elusive person of Kurtz, and while Marlow does eventually meet this legendary character, Ada Byrd never does meet the dark force known simply as the Grey Dog. In many ways, the forest, and the Grey Dog, are metaphysical metaphors of Ada’s own mental fragility and fears.

Ada’s descent from educated and dedicated schoolmistress into madness and a bestial state seems inevitable, predetermined by what she has endured at the hands of a brutal and manipulative father, the powerful allure of a wealthy widow, and the social mores of the time. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion, or knowing the protagonist standing in front of the basement door is going to open it and walk down into darkness and horror. It’s that ability of a writer to draw upon our most primal fears and lay them down as inevitable.

And yet Gish has refrained from the current affectation of splatter and gore. Watching the horror unfold in Grey Dog is like a dance of the seven veils: provocative, seductive, often subtle. I applaud her for her restraint and craftsmanship.

However, it is important for the reader of this review to know I am mostly ambivalent to this genre, so for Gish to have garnered my interest and nod is quite something. Sure, there are nits I could pick, but they are minor and mostly attributable to my own pet peeves. Given that, I’d have to say any lover of modern gothic horror is going to love Grey Dog. And if this is Gish’s debut novel, I can only imagine with interest what might be coming next.