Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver

Happy New Year! I hope everyone’s 2024 ended well and that 2025 is looking hopeful. As for me, I thought kicking off the new year with a new piece of Gothic literature set tone tone very well. Wakenhyrst was recommended by Sadie Hartman, who has the Instagram account Mother Horror, and though she’s suggested some wonderful books that I’ve greatly enjoyed, Wakenhyrst is by far my favorite. It hits all the Goth sweet spots – dysfunctional family, big mysterious house, family secrets, forbidden romance, death, and just that sense of menace and danger overhanging it all.

The novel starts in the 1960s with Maud Stearne being badgered by journalists to tell the true story of her father, Edmund, who is incarcerated in an insane asylum for murder when Maud was 16. It then goes back in time to tell the tale of Maud, growing up in the early 1900s on her family’s estate Wake’s End in Suffolk, England, which is near a large fen and near the town of Wakenhyrst. Her father, Edmund, is arrogant, repressive, misogynistic, bordering on delusional which gets worse as the book progresses, and simply a selfish prick. Maud’s mother dies in childbirth, one of dozens of children she has been forced to have due to Edmund’s relentless sexual drive and refusal to give her any respite. Maud is then left with her father, who thinks of her as a lesser being, not able to have an imagination or intellect. However, Maud is well read and highly intelligent, and slowly begins to think of ways to unsettle her father, to get back at him, and to develop her own thoughts and opinions.

She also begins to understand how her father is spiraling mentally, as he records his thoughts in his journals that she reads in secret. Edmund has become obsessed with a “doom” painting that has been discovered in their local medieval church. A doom painting is a medieval depiction of the Biblical Last Judgement, meant to essentially terrify people into following the rules of the Church lest they end up in Hell. Edmund has a secret he has kept for many years and his guilt over it turns into insanity as he begins to believe that the demon depicted in the doom painting has been released into the world and is tormenting him. The fact that strange things start to happen on the estate make the reader question – it it Maud tormenting her father to pay him back for his cruelty, or is there really a demon haunting the family? It’s this ambiguity that adds to the already Gothically atmospheric book.

To me, the true horror of the book is how minimized women truly were in this historical period. Maud is intelligent, witty and has a mind of her own, yet time and time again the masculine forces in her life dismiss her and even work actively against her. She is considered little better than a servant, existing only to serve as her father’s clerk and run the household. The other female characters are also treated horribly. Maud’s mother is essentially raped nearly every night until she gets pregnant, and has lost eight babies. The servant Ivy is taken as Edmund’s sex toy after Maud’s mother dies, after having survived sexual abuse at the hands of her own father. The only respite Maud finds is her friendship with Clem, one of the estate field hands, and with whom she falls in love. Their love is not meant to be, however, but in as shocking a way as anything else in this riveting story.

Having read a very significant amount of literature in my years, I can say, hand over heart, that I have never disliked a literary parent as much as I loathe Edmund Stearne. I mean, Margaret White from Carrie and Charlotte Gibney from the Holly Gibney books (and yes, both are Stephen King books!) were previously neck-in-neck in the despised parent category, but Edmund takes the cake. Maud’s father is delusional, abusive, arrogant, entitled, insane, and at the end, a murderer. He is the literary embodiment of every horrible thing that men have ever done to women throughout history. He is a marvelous counterpoint to Maud’s intellect, wit, and her inner strength. She is really a wonderfully written heroine and although she has lived a hard and sad life, you see at the end when she does tell the truth about her father and his insanity and murder, that it has freed her and allowed her to make peace with her situation with Clem and even with her horrible father.

In one pivotal scene, the servants of Wake’s End are celebrating New Year’s Eve with a large party belowstairs, and much eating and drinking. Edmund has gone into Wakenhyrst to do some research and is thankfully gone for much of the evening. Maud chooses to give the servants a nice evening off and purposely orders a simple meal of her favorite foods, foods that are simple to prepare and thus, the servants enjoy an evening free of the family’s typical culinary demands.

Thus while the servants grew merry on kitchel cakes and spiced elderberry wine, she tried to ensure a good year for herself by doing her favourite things. It was too dark to go for a walk in the fen, but she ordered her supper on a tray in the library, which was her favourite room, and she had her favourite foods: venison pie and apple cheesecake with ginger beer. Then she settled down by the fire and read her favourite bits in Robinson Crusoe.

I like cheesecake, but for me, it is more of a summer dish as it is served chilled. So I opted to take my usual apple cheesecake method and turn it into apple cheesecake scones.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 stick of butter, ice cold and cut into cubes
1 cup softened cream cheese, full fat
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 egg, cold
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 medium apples, diced into cubes

METHOD
Preheat oven to 420F, line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and in a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and sugar.

Cut in butter with a pastry cutter until the texture resembles peas.

Add in the cream cheese, egg, cream, maple syrup, and vanilla and mix until a shaggy dough forms.

Mix in apples.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead a few times until the dough comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and pat the dough into a thick round. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. (You can refrigerate overnight if you want.)

Roll out the dough and cut out thick rounds. Place the rounds on the baking sheets.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Remove from oven and let them cool a few minutes, before enjoying warm with a cup of coffee or tea. They are lovely and not too sweet, just as Maud surely would have appreciated.