Jennifer Thorne’s Lute is an unsettling horror story, set on the titular island. Lute is a beautiful, sheltered isle, known for its perfect weather, welcoming community, and suspicious good health. The people of Lute are, in fact, notoriously lucky – even back in the age of sail, sea captains would seek out sailors from Lute, in the hopes their presence would guarantee a trouble-free voyage. On Lute, we learn, everything is perfectly fine.
Nina is the Lady of Lute. She’s American, but has received this grandiose title by virtue of her marriage to Hugh Treadway, latest in the line of Lute’s hereditary lords. Nina, Hugh and their two young children love Lute, although Nina – despite the many friends and warm smiles – still feels there’s something reserved about the place. She will always be, she’s aware, an outsider.
Part of Nina’s discontent with her life on Lute is her scepticism about the island’s most famed tradition: ‘the Day’. The Day is an ancient, suspiciously mythic, celebration that takes place every seven years – an island-wide affair that’s part-anniversary/part rite. The Day is, supposedly, Lute’s karmic balance: its day of sacrifice. The day where the continuous pleasantry is balanced – or earned. Lute opens three days before The Day, and Nina is sensitive that the islanders are being even stranger than usual – including her husband and children.
Lute follows Nina in the run-up to the Day. As it approaches, the islanders become more strange – some manic, some phlegmatic – and Nina begins to piece together secrets that cross generations.. When the Day itself occurs, with its inevitably cataclysmic events, Nina has choices to make for the islanders, for her children, and, ultimately, for herself.
The island, despite its inaccessibility, is not a naturally claustrophobic space. Nor does Nina herself ever feel particularly trapped – instead, she’s more of a passive witness as her husband frets, clawing at the bars of his proverbial cage. Nina does not remain passive throughout; indeed, the great ‘conflict’ of the book centres around her decision on which part she chooses to play in the unfolding drama. The horrors of Lute are predictable (eventually, even to Nina): her agency comes from when she chooses to accept them, and what form that acceptance takes.
Nina is a translucent character, she’s always slightly vague in her surroundings. This is, we learn, something of a survival trait: her own background and upbringing are troubled, and keeping herself at a remove is a natural defense. Her general blurriness generally suits Lute well; allowing the reader to appreciate Lute’s charms, but from a safe distance.
Lute excels in its quieter moments. It is, ultimately, a story about Nina and her choices. As such, a great deal of the ‘conflict’ is introspective, as Nina contemplates her own past, and the journey she’s taken. The horror, such as it is, feels almost gaudy by comparison. The action scenes are mostly minimised, which is probably for the best. The overall vibe of Lute is folkloric, as befitting a woman’s search for belonging on a timeless isle.
Where Lute is less excellent is in its, slightly shoehorned, science-fictional elements. The core ‘thesis’ of Lute is that it is a place unchanged; chained to a ritual that dates back to its very first, pre-Roman inhabitants. The novella upsets that not only by grounding the story in a specific place and time, but also by choosing a time in the near future: an era of resource deprivation and a slow-burning WWIII. Lute is about atmosphere and insularity – except when it isn’t. Sometimes it is peppering us with strange trivia about America’s invasion of Finland instead. The science fictional elements are a first act gun that never actually fires; unnecessary world-building that doesn’t add anything to the story or its themes. Lute’s magic comes from being a place on its own, out of time, removed from history. The science-fictional setting isn’t merely a distraction, it also does Lute a disservice by repeatedly distracting from, or simply interrupting, the reader’s suspension of disbelief. Lute’s denouement was also not to my personal taste: Lute – and Lute – does not need a ‘rational’ solution, and, like the war in the background, its presence raises more questions than answers.
All that said: my quibbles with Lute are minor, and pale in the face of its strengths. Lute brings to life the experience of ostracism and the feeling of being an outsider. It is ‘horror’ in that it plays on one of our greatest anxieties: the sense of feeling unwelcome, and not knowing where (or if) one might ever belong.
A huge thanks to Tor Nightfire for the review copy and Jared Shurin for his first guest review at The Fantasy Inn!
Love the wandering inn series