The Great West Wood by Philip Palmer (Book Review #2245)

Philip Palmer’s The Great West Wood is a daring journey into the evolution of urban life. The novel deftly intertwines modern urban living with ancient mythology; family drama meets folklore; an .com-crime story meets the contemporary fantasy. This faith-filled collection of images, thoughts, and associations creates an imaginative, sensual, colourful, and deep expression of life in a surreal part of South London.

Westwood (the fictional borough of the novel) is not a real place, yet it has such power and cultural richness that it feels more like a real place than any part of actual London. The author creates Westwood as a character in the story; the soil of Westwood holds its history, the trees whisper to one another, and the people of Westwood exist within a fragile boundary between the ordinary world and the magical world beyond their knowledge.

At the centre of this novel is the story of the McBride family, a multi-generational family whose ties and burdens form much of the storyline. The author examines how grief, community, identity, and transformation are part of the McBrides’ stories. The author surrounds the McBrides with a wealth of colourful characters who represent humanity’s strengths and weaknesses. Included in the supporting cast is the author’s omniscient narrator, an unreliable observer who is at times comical and at times poignant. Palmer uses the narrator to reveal the richness of history, with humorous observations.
Then we meet the Bogman.

The Bogman is a prehistoric pagan warrior whose body was naturally preserved due to the conditions of his find and was mysteriously reanimated. The Bogman’s evolution from an oddity of history to a crime lord represents a cultural transformation in how people view authority versus the power of myth. The Bogman pulls the plot into the thriller category and provides a muscular energy to the already rich emotional and magical threads of the story. Palmer uses the Bogman to represent power, myth, and modernity’s disconnection from the earth.

The book is intriguing because of the fusion of genres; Palmer embraces the blending of fantasy and reality, humor and tragedy, literature and pulp fiction. The Great West Wood is written as a tribute to South London and to London itself; it offers a celebration of the magical elements of urban life and a warning to not ignore the unknown forces that exist. Palmer’s prose is vivid and humorous. He is a master of pacing and dialogue, as seen in his past as a screenwriter. Palmer’s inventive, distinctive, and uniquely British voice will resonate with everyone who embraces the joy of discovering beautiful, complex books like The Great West Wood.

Written by Jeyran Main

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