They Never Find The Bodies In Whispering Pines
Nictitating Books
Sean Malia Thompson
When I interviewed author Sean Malia Thompson here on The Scifi and Fantasy Reviewer back in January 2022, one of the questions I asked was predicated on my assumption that much of his writing could loosely categorised under the term ‘Weird Horror’; and the question itself hinged upon the definition of that term and how it had shaped Thompson’s writing. Intriguingly, the answer I got back for that question was nothing like I had expected, and instead led to a fascinating discussion about the differences in how an author and a reader/reviewer see a piece of writing and what terminology can be used to try and define it. It’s a great interview, which I think is one of the best I’ve done for this website, and I’d strongly urge you to go and read through it to get some insights into one of my favourite horror authors.
That discussion about the concept of labeling, and how radically different an author and a reader might view a piece of fiction, has lurked in the back of my mind for several years now; and it appeared once again once I had finished reading through They Never Find The Bodies In Whispering Pines – one of the more recent releases by Thompson and published under his own publishing imprint, Nictitating Books. When I finished the novel – which I believe is actually the ‘mosaic novel’ that Thompson mentioned in that interview – it took me some time to try and gather my thoughts about what I’d just read. Because while it might superficially be categorised under ‘Weird Horror’, I actually think that’s far too restrictive a term; an attempt to classify and pin-down something that is much more complex and multi-layered than might first be considered. Because there are parts of They Never Find The Bodies In Whispering Pines that are ‘weird’ but then there are also many parts that are deeply unsettling; many parts that are deeply surreal and mind-bending in concept; and some parts, particularly towards the end of the novel, that are just downright terrifying. And all of it wrapped up in the oppressive, haunting and ever-fluctuating locale that is Whispering Pines.
They Never Find The Bodies In Whispering Pines acts as a piece of mosaic writing that not only tells its own story about the notoriously haunted Whispering Pines forest and the people intertwined with it; but also encompasses and contextualises some of Thompson’s previous stories – including the novellas Farmington Correctional and Astrum which I previously reviewed here on the blog. The overarching story revolves around Greg and Thomas, a film-making duo who are determined to film a documentary about all of the unexplained disappearances and other eerie events that have occurred in and around Whispering Pines over a period of decades – perhaps even centuries. To achieve their goal, the duo must venture deep into the woods in an attempt to not only procure usable footage for the documentary – avoiding the many natural and unnatural pitfalls that the lurk amongst the trees – but they also find themselves conducting interviews with many of the residents of Whispering Pines who have managed to survive encounters with the strange and often supernatural forces that give Whispering Pines its reputation. That includes someone who survived a brutal incident in the local prison (Farmington Correctional) and even something akin to an alien encounter deep in the woods (Astrum). At the same time, the two men must deal with the uncertain and fluctuating nature of their friendship; what being in their early twenties means for each of them; and even whether the documentary itself will actually be made given everything they encounter during its creation.
A horror novel that defies any attempt at categorisation into any one subgenre, They Never Find The Bodies In Whispering Pines is a complex, fascinating and highly-rewarding story that really comes alive after multiple readings. On one level it’s an exploration of Whispering Pines as a location that’s a locus for supernatural and unnatural phenomenon that have resulted in hundreds – if not thousands – of people being killed or simply disappearing over the decades. Thompson does an amazing job of using interviews, ‘found footage’-style descriptions and first-person, stream-of-consciousness writing to create an unsettling view of the forest and evoking a certain atmosphere. In particular, there’s a section early on in the novel from the point of view of a deranged individual who lurks at the edges of the forest, hunting people and ‘communing’ with the forest itself that’s stayed with me for a while after finishing the novel. The integration of Farmington Correctional and Astrum is particularly well done, and do a lot to effectively structure the novel and give it an overarching theme. On another level, the novel is less about the forest and more about the strained friendship between Greg and Thomas, with Thompson presenting us with two young men who are struggling to figure out what they’re doing with their lives, and also struggling to understand that the documentary means very different things to each other. That friendship provides a lot of pathos throughout the novel, and then neatly integrates with Whispering Pines itself towards the end of the story.
Taken altogether, They Never Find The Bodies In Whispering Pines is a slow-burning, transgressive and ultimately deeply disconcerting horror novel that succeeds in keeping the reader off-balance and uncertain until its final pages. There’s blood and guts and dead bodies galore in some sections, but they’re interlaced with much more intimate and personal horrors that are just as memorable and terrifying – and it highlights just how talented Thompson is as a writer that he manages to develop both and bring them together into one novel. It’s a superb piece of horror fiction, and I look forward to seeing what Thompson and Nictitating Books come up with in the future.
The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer 