Damien Kelly

So, I’ve been a huge fan of Chuck Wendig’s for many years, and I may now be at a point where just his voice on the page means I’m just primed to enjoy what he writes. And so it was here, where I really enjoyed and stuck with this story, even though nothing and no one here is likeable.

Four friends reunite despite profound estrangement to relive and regret the supernatural disappearance of a fifth friend in their youth. As young adults, the five were a classic found family, extreme outsiders who found refuge from home and community in their little clique. But Matty, who would end up disappearing, was never a real fit with the others. Intelligent, popular, handsome and accomplished in every way, he was hiding from expectations, while the others lived lives where those were few and far between. His presence ends up being a crack in what would otherwise be a common bond of dysfunction, and it is into this crack that the horror elements flow, exposing the myth of found family as some unshakeable fix for the struggles we have with the wider social world. When his disappearance up a set of stairs in the woods finally destroys this fragile family, it proves to be only the beginning of how these people will go on to hurt each other in the name of found family.

The supernatural elements of the book are very chaotic, and the villainous entity they’re up against is really a kind of haphazard collection of threats and consequences. What’s far more interesting is the counter-IT (as in the Stephen King classic) theme going on here, where the bonds of youth are not the essential strengths we hold them up to be, and the traumas we think can be cured by the company of like-minded, similarly abused souls are only amplified by misery’s preferred company. Here, damaged people damage people and that remains the message from opening to ending. It subverts the trope, brings a greater and more personal edge to the horror and elevates what is otherwise another haunted house story to one where the living haunt the living and not the dead.

It’s hard to like, but compelling to read and I would definitely recommend it.

My thanks to Chuck Wendig and Random House UK for giving me a copy to read.

The Staircase in the Woods is out everywhere on April 29th, 2025. Pre-order now where you get your books.