Review: The Croning - Laird Barron

Genre: Horror Published: Night Shade Books, 2012 My Rating: 3.5/5 stars

“The deepest cavern in the world is the human heart.”

The Croning has been on my radar for quite some time for its reputation as one of the quintessential works of modern Lovecraftian horror. Because of that reputation, I went in with high expectations, despite knowing virtually nothing about the actual plot of the novel. Maybe, doing a little more research in advance would’ve helped to prime me in the right direction, as I was not expecting Lovecraft meets Rumpelstiltskin…

Told in a series of fragmented snippets from different time-periods of his life, we follow Donald Miller; an aging geologist who’s passion for his academic research is only rivaled by his devotion to his anthropologist wife Michelle. Their joined research into the Hollow Earth theory has led them on plenty of adventures into some of the deepest caverns around the world.

Now, in his aging days, Don is left with inexplicable gaps in his memories of those days, and a new crippling fear of the dark. As he investigates, he comes upon the trail of something far larger and darker than those deep caverns ever could be; a blackness that might shatter his mind, if stared into too long…

From the first page on, I could immediately see where the comparisons to Lovecraft hail from. Barron masterfully captures the feeling of lingering dread of something beyond comprehension lurking in the shadows, and the spiraling insanity that results from looking too deep into it. Where he differs from great HPL is in the fact that his horrors are a bit more intimate and personal. Where Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones were ambivalent to our small human fates, Barrons Eldridge abomination interact far more directly, and with more malice, with our characters. For some readers, that will make them scarier. For me, strangely, it makes them a little less intimidating.

Also similar to Lovecraft’s work is that, although technically a standalone novel, The Croning is part of Laird Barron’s larger universe and mythology. I wish I’d known this beforehand. To me, this felt like it was intended to be read last; almost as the pinnacle of his mythos at the end of a series of short-stories. That also fits the build-up of this novel, in a series of almost-short-stories from our protagonist’s life perfectly. Maybe, with the build up of a full canon of short stories before it, the ending would’ve worked better for me. As a standalone, I didn’t love the pacing, nor the way the ending overexplained itself. It almost felt like a stereotypical "villains monologue", explaining and taking away much of the ominous mystery that was present.

A final gripe that is a bit more personal to my tastes is the reliance on “sexual/sensual horror”. There are multiple allusions to violation and non-consensual sexual acts. There’s also a heavy presence of the trope of “hypersexualized naked femme-fatal leading the male protagonists to his horrifying end”, which I can’t stand. Maybe I’d have to be a guy to get this, but bouncy-breasted priestesses seducing salivating protagonists will never be mysteriously scary to me, and will always be cringy…

You can find this book here on Goodreads.