It feels so authentic and real, like the author was writing a transcript of a real show and not just a novella. And I have to say, that documentary approach is masterful. These characters look back on a halcyon summer that turned into a surreal mystery some seekers of the occult read supernatural influences into the matter, while non believers take more rational approaches. Wylding Hall is written as a present-day documentary all the key players are interviewed individually, commenting on others’ interviews or responding to questions from a filmmaker/interviewer who never appears in the text. Whose story, if any, is true? What happened to Julian Blake? And what about that strange girl who appeared out of nowhere, and vanished with Blake into the nothingness from which she came? The details begin to add up, though it brings us no closer to finding the mystery of Julian Blake.

Each tells their own versions of what happened that fateful summer, dredging up old memories filtered through personal biases, nostalgia, and the passage of time. Now, decades later, a young documentary filmmaker wants to tell the story of Wylding Hall and Julian’s disappearance, interviewing the surviving musicians, their manager, their ex-lovers. Nobody from the band could predict what would happen next: the sudden and strange disappearance of lead singer/songwriter Julian Blake… The hall is surrounded by natural beauty and awash in dark secrets.

The acid-folk band Windhollow Faire is reeling from the apparent suicide of former singer Arianna, which is why their manager compels them to hole up at an old manor in the country to write and record their next LP. Wylding Hall, it’s called, an ancient building part of it dates back to the Norman Conquest.

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand