Grey Dog by Elliott Gish
ECW Press, 2024
ISBN-13 : 978-1770417328
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD
Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com
In 1901 Canada, Ada Byrd, fleeing from a sex scandal and escaping from under her father’s thumb, takes up a position as a school teacher in the small town of Lowry Bridge. Things go well at the beginning: she is welcomed by the families, and makes new friends, such as Agatha, the minister’s wife. Ada goes to church, helps organize picnics and plays, and freely dances at one of the town’s festivities. She follows the town’s rules and their suspicions of the wild child, Muriel, and the spinster, Mrs. Kinsley, who the town considers a witch.
The civilized life she leads is in contrast to the dark woods surrounding the town. To get from the schoolhouse to the home she shares with her host family, the Griers, she must pass eerie woods that seem to be watching her every move. Time goes on, and the ordered and civilized life she leads starts to fade, as her past life comes back to haunt her and the town starts to reveal its secrets. Ada slowly breaks away from the rigid conventions of the town, and feels drawn to the wildness of the woods. She starts spending more time with town outcasts, Muriel and Mrs. Kinsley, and rejects Agatha and Mrs. Grier, the more accepted members of society.
Ada writes in her journal that there are many ways to be a good man, but only one way to be a good woman. The pressure of women being forced into specific gender roles breaks Ada, and you see her slow descent into madness as she breaks the bonds of civility. She’s not just refusing to shave her legs or wearing white after Labor Day. The book is a slow burn but at the end, it revs up like The Shining. It goes from psychological and paranormal horror to a slasher.
Even though it has feminist themes, Ada herself is somewhat self-hating of women and seems to take her trauma out on the women in the book rather than the men who hurt her. Grey Dog is well-written, and Ada’s descent is reminiscent of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This novel had so many themes, such as trauma, sapphic love, rape, birth, death, gender roles, and yearning that it is a haunting read that will have you thinking about it and running online to find out what others thought of it. I recommend it, though the ending might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Reviewed by Lucy Nguyen
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