Grey Dog by Elliott Gish

Full disclosure: I went to library school with Elliott Gish. There’s a strange bond that emerges when you suffer through groupwork in library school together. Though that’s not precisely why I loved this book. When she first announced that Grey Dog was going to be published, I knew I had to read it for several reasons, chief among them that we’d already established a mutual love of L.M. Montgomery, and I knew a historical book by Elliott would be influenced by that love so I had to do it. And also, Grey Dog falls right in line with my current literary obsession: creeping, unsettling, psychological horror. I was ready to be disturbed, and I was, in the best way.

It’s 1901, and Ada Byrd is nearly thirty, unmarried, and off to her new teaching post in the small, isolated village of Lowry Bridge. Writing of her trepidation about this new post in a journal she found from her sister Florrie, Ada hides her secrets from not only Lowry Bridge, but herself. This is her chance to start over, and she’s ready to make a go of it, even though she doesn’t particularly like teaching or want to be in Lowry Bridge. Through her diary entries, we follow Ada’s attempts to settle into the community, the oddities she uncovers in the community — and her own creeping certainty that something is not right in Lowry Bridge. She begins to receive parts of dead animals and witnesses unsettling phenomenon in the woods surrounding the community. She’s repulsed, but there’s also something she finds deeply compelling about the force calling to her. This slow spiral into madness and rage is terrifying to behold, and Ada is unable to hold herself apart from it, even as she knows it’s a bad idea.

There are several themes here: female rage, womanhood and the ways it hasn’t changed, the forbidden quality of desire, and particularly desire for another woman (especially fraught in a novel set in 1901!). But I think what struck me most of all is how ordinary everything seemed — how well-done the setting, tone, and pace of Grey Dog are established before slow-dripping us into Ada’s crisis. The book, as her diary, starts off as an educated “lady’s” diary, properly bred and prim, even as she hints at darkness in her past amidst this new change. Ada is a challenge from the start.

A perfect horror novel for all of us who love classic novels about women and womanhood, as well as anyone who appreciates historical fiction carefully telling the stories of queer characters. Grey Dog is sweet and picturesque until its not.

Grey Dog is a perfect horror novel for all of us who love classic novels about women and womanhood, as well as anyone who appreciates historical fiction carefully telling the stories of queer characters. Grey Dog is sweet and picturesque until its not; Ada’s unhinging is slow to come to focus. The pacing of this is flawless, I cannot expend enough words on how incredibly creepy it was, in the very best of ways. And it also plays on that glut of historical fiction that so many girls are given as children if they’re in any way bookish: if you were one of those girls, you will appreciate Grey Dog on an even deeper level because of these callbacks.

Elliott Gish is a writer and librarian from Halifax, where she lives with her partner. A graduate of Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio, Gish’s fiction has appeared in many journals, including the New Quarterly, the Baltimore Review, and the Dalhousie Review, and was nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize.

Publisher: ECW Press (April 9, 2024)
Paperback 5.5″ x 8.5″ | 400 pages
ISBN: 9781770417328

Alison Manley

Website

Alison Manley has ricocheted between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia for most of her life. Now in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she is the Cataloguing and Metadata Librarian at Saint Mary's University. Her past life includes a long stint as a hospital librarian on the banks of the mighty Miramichi River. She has an honours BA in political science and English from St. Francis Xavier University, and a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University. While she's adamant that her love of reading has nothing to do with her work, her ability to consume large amounts of information very quickly sure is helpful. She is often identified by her very red lipstick, and lives with her partner Brett and cat, Toasted Marshmallow.