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The Wood of Suicides

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The Wood of Suicides
AuthorLaura Elizabeth Woollett
LanguageEnglish
Published2014 (The Permanent Press)
Publication placeUnited States
Pages192 pp
ISBN978-1-57962-350-0

The Wood of Suicides is a 2014 debut novel by Australian writer Laura Elizabeth Woollett. It centers on a 17-year-old girl's affair with her English teacher, after her father commits suicide.

Literary references

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The Wood of Suicides takes its title from Canto XIII of Dante's Inferno, which describes a tortured wood where suicides are encased in bark. It also borrows heavily from the myth of Apollo and Daphne, referencing it explicitly at several points.

Reception

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The Wood of Suicides has received mixed to positive reviews. Kirkus Reviews wrote "an anxious, uneasy, and despondent anti-romance novel."[1] Publishers Weekly wrote "The novel successfully creates a disturbing, ethically ambiguous effect, but the prose, though true to the voice of a lovelorn, troubled teenager, feels overwrought."[2]

References

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