They Have a Sacred Pact With a Bog. It Might Be a Curse.

THE BOG WIFE, by Kay Chronister

Much like its main characters, Kay Chronister’s new novel, “The Bog Wife,” lives in two worlds at once. It’s situated both in the real world, with fraught familial and marital relationships, complex social dynamics and crucial activities like paying bills and pre-emptively felling dangerous trees, as well as in a dreamy Southern gothic world filled with ancient magic, supernatural compacts and, potentially, murder.

The Haddesleys live on a cranberry bog in West Virginia. The family patriarch, Charles, claims that the land is theirs by right stretching back generations to their ancestors in Scotland. “Our ways are noble; they are ancient,” their father says. “Always the bog has belonged to us and we to it.” They have a sacred covenant with the land — the Haddesleys perform elaborate rituals and care for the bog, and in exchange, every generation a “bog-wife” is formed from the wetlands, for the oldest son to marry and create the next little Haddesleys with.

When the book opens, the current bog-wife has been missing for a decade and the family’s hateful, abusive and possibly murderous patriarch lies dying. Quickly it becomes clear that things cannot continue as they have, forcing the five adult Haddesley children to question their family legacy and their roles within it, while also trying to summon new life from the bog.

It’s an unwieldy and hard-to-describe setup, but the five siblings are the greatest strength of the narrative. Each is alternately heartbreaking and maddening. Charlie, the elder son, is ambivalent about his own future bog-wife bride and, after a terrible injury, no longer capable of fathering children. Younger brother Percy is angry and resentful, unable to take Charlie’s role without breaking the pact with the land. Middle sister Wenna escaped the family at 17, but has struggled to put down roots or let anyone in, including her now-estranged husband. Youngest sister Nora just wants the family to stay together, while oldest sister Eda is being crushed under the weight of caring for everyone, which she has been doing since even before their mother mysteriously vanished.

There’s a sense of deep claustrophobia in the setting. Food is scarce, money is dwindling. The land that’s always provided for them has become unknowable and unyielding. For the Haddesleys, it all feels like a timer ticking down to a terrible ending. Each character struggles to process what seems to be the impending destruction of their legacy — both literal, as the bog dies and the house crumbles, and metaphorical, as they discover lies about their heritage and admit that their long-lost mother may have never wanted any of her life, including them.