Northwood

A sharp-edged modern fairy tale that reimagines a torrid romance as a kind of mythical monster story
A gorgeously designed literary object, Northwood is also a poetic novel-in-fragments; the book is packaged with a striking cover, interior black paper with white text, intermittent original illustrations, and an experimental layout; the design deepens the reader's immersion into darkening hours of the woodsy winter setting, and into the narrator's violent romantic relationship
In the spirit of Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red comes the unforgettable new book by the author of the story collection Heartbreaker, which was named an Electric Literature Best Short Story Collection of 2016 and a Chicago Review of Books Best Fiction of 2016
Haunting the fringes of the narrator's consciousness and her story are fragments of her father's suicide, her mother's well-meaning criticisms, and her own struggles as a visual artist
Meijer began writing the book during her Yaddo residency, following a series of personal losses. Interested in poetic and microfiction forms as a way to play with narrative and structure, and influenced by the woods and wildlife surrounding Yaddo, Northwood was born out of an experimentation with form as a response to grief and wildness
Author events confirmed in Chicago, IL; Brooklyn, NY; Santa Cruz, CA; Cambridge, MA; and Minneapolis, MN «Northwood is a darkly erotic, violent, and reflective journey through obsession, desire, and the personal journey toward one's own grief and oblivion. A memory that refuses to die . . . while also refusing to breathe life. Meijer is fearlessly personal here, admitting through the experimental narrative things that most of us sidestep. She rends the fiber of desire into its base elements and deftly reconstructs them into something a little less fragile . . . but no less ready to burst. Northwood will turn you on, draw you in, and mess you up. Meijer is a rare writer able to make you feel empathy for very flawed characters . . . and then shows you that you've been looking in a mirror all along.» —Kevin Elliot, Seminary Co-op/57th Street Books (Chicago, IL)
«Maryse Meijer’s Northwood is a staggering portrait of the aches and epiphanies that come in the wake of desire, especially the kind of desire that can destroy us in holding it. The impact of Northwood is enhanced by the writing, which balances bluntness and beauty in equal if sometimes alternating measure, and its mythic resonances of fairy-tale metaphor. All told, it’s a singular work that will be appreciated by anyone who has experience with the darker sides of love and lust.» —Raven Book Store staff (Lawrence, KS)