The modern publishing industry is very keen to keep authors in their lanes, writing more or less the same book as their last one. But for anyone of a creative disposition – such as Scottish author Lorraine Wilson – that kind of formula is surely anathema.
Wilson has a handful of novels under her belt, ranging from folkloric mystery to literary fiction, and she strikes me as a writer who is always trying to do something new and fresh. That’s certainly the case with her latest, We Are All Ghosts in the Forest, a sumptuous, slow-burn dystopian story with hints of fantasy and fairytale thrown in.
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When the internet collapses and takes civilisation with it, Katerina flees the chaotic city to live at the edge of the forest in her grandmother’s village, focusing on herbal healing and beekeeping. One day, she meets a silent boy in the village marketplace with nothing but her name in his pocket, forcing them both to go on a voyage of discovery. The forest and the village are haunted by the digital ghosts of the dead internet, as well as other spectres which have their eyes on Katerina.
Rumours of witchcraft, disease and crop failure haunt both Katerina and the boy as they search for his missing father and an answer to all the recent disruption.
We Are All Ghosts in the Forest is a finely crafted story set in a sumptuously created world. Wilson asks big questions in a subtle and intriguing way, and the book and its author are interested in the way we live today, and how we might live better and more harmoniously in the future. Thought provoking and quietly profound.
