The Loney: the contemporary classic

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Let me start, though, with what I enjoyed about The Loney. Firstly, Andrew Hurley's prose is lucid and visual, evocative of the scenes he is describing to the extent that I felt unusually present in the narrative. His characters are thoroughly well drawn - and that's no easy accomplishment in a multi-character novel like this. He also manages to engender, from the beginning, an air of heart rate raising uneasiness. It's a little like going to a horror movie you know nothing about. You know something's going to happen, you're just not sure what!

The Loney has been called a horror story and while it certainly draws on some of the gothic tropes – the lonely house, the gloomy weather, witches and transformation – perhaps the greatest horror of all lies not in the ghosts of the dead and drowned but in the realisation Fr Wilfred has of his own insignificance.

Beyond the Book

The first novel that I ever wrote was set in London and even though I'd lived there for a few years at the time it still felt like a novel written by an outsider, a tourist. When I started to think about writing another, I knew that I wanted to write something which would feel more authentic to me, something rooted in a landscape that felt more a part of who I was. From a young age, I've spent a lot of time outdoors, walking and climbing in places like the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and North Wales and being fascinated by the wilder, lonelier, more remote places. So I knew that if I were to write something truer to myself, then it would have a rural rather than urban setting. Indeed, all his parishioners deserved to feel like Miss Bunce. Different, loved, guided and judged. It was their reward for being held to ransom by a world that demanded the right to engage in moral brinkmanship whenever it pleased.” The unspoken hope of the party is that the narrator’s brother, Hanny, who is mute and institutionalised, will be cured of his affliction by visiting the local shrine; however, as the story progresses, it becomes apparent that all the pilgrims have their own secrets, sins and crosses to bear, and that all are in some sense seeking absolution. The boys’ mother, Mummer, is a woman on the edge: her fierce mourning for Father Bernard’s predecessor, the waspish and sadistic Father Wilfred, bespeaks a faith worn threadbare by the trials she has undergone. The remote old estate that the priest rents out was built by a wealthy gentleman who took up taxidermy as a hobby. Preserved rats, two hideously stuffed chimpanzees seated on a tandem bicycle, and a sealed jar of urine are part of the odd charms of staying in this place called Moorings. The never ending rain and mist, fearsome locals speaking in bizarre dialects, and a mysterious, heavily pregnant 13 year old add twists of fear to the atmosphere.

Lastly, if you're a Catholic, prepare to possibly be offended. The good news is that the Irish priest who plays the biggest role in the story is a gem, and he has a Labrador retriever to boot. Perfect dog to go chase a ball at the beach, but never, ever, ever at the Loney. 5 stars. Well, some of my words are neither here nor there considering the novel but my point is that there is a small group that creates really close community, with strong touch of religiousness - I’m reluctant to call them sect- though sometimes their devotion had something very unhealthy under the surface. I can understand that in such an insecure times, in such disfunctional balance in the world people need reassurance and encouragement. Some people are strong enough on their own while others need support. I can answer the second part of that question first and say no, not really. That is to say that even though the novel was influenced by the gothic, it was influenced by a great many other things too and I didn't consciously set out to write something I would knowingly call a 'Gothic novel' or try and place the narrative within the perceived boundaries of that genre. The initial inspiration for The Loney came from the last two lines of the W.B. Yeats poem, ‘The Second Coming’ - "And what rough beast, its hour come around at last / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" I intended the novel to be a dark re-telling of the Nativity and that conceit, coupled with the shifting, menacing landscape of Morecambe Bay is probably why The Loney has been given the label of 'Gothic'.” Does being termed ‘Gothic’ affect your ongoing writing?I feel like I'm missing something. So many people loved this book but unfortunately I'm just not one of them. Nuanced, deliberate and building insensibly from a murmur to a shriek. The Loney is an unforgettable addition to the ranks of the best British horror. Hurley has previously had two volumes of short stories published by the Lime Tree Press ( Cages and Other Stories, 2006, ISBN 9781411699021, and The Unusual Death of Julie Christie and Other Stories, 2008, ISBN 9780955981401). [3] He lives in Lancashire, where he teaches English literature and creative writing. [3] Andrew Michael Hurley’s debut novel The Loney, first published in 2014 does just that. He didn’t necessarily set out with the intention for the novel to be ‘Gothic’ however – basing the subject of the book on ‘The Loney’ itself which is a length of mysterious, muddy coastline on England’s North West edge, not too far from where Morecambe is now. Meet the man whose debut novel delves into the modern Gothic, went from small print-run to big success and teaches at MMU