In THE BOATMAN’S DAUGHTER, Andy Davidson established himself as a writer interested in place. This is certainly the case with his latest novel, THE HOLLOW KIND, in which he brings an old-growth forest in Georgia to horrible life. The forest is both a setting and a character as it lives, haunts and feeds on the animals and people who settle there. The book centers on the Redfern family, four generations of stewards of land along the Altamaha River.

When Nellie Gardner’s grandfather, August Redfern, dies and leaves her the family estate near the small town of Empire, Georgia, she sees it as an opportunity to flee her abusive husband, Wade, and start a better life with her 11-year-old son, Max. Nellie only knows Redfern Hill from a few strange days she spent with her grandfather there when she was a teenager. After she left, she had put what she experienced out of her mind. Unfortunately, it all comes back to her.

"Davidson effectively uses horror to explore intergenerational trauma. The characters are diverse and interesting.... Inventive and rich, THE HOLLOW KIND is an entertaining and frightening family saga."

August had been living in a Winnebago on the property before his death, and Nellie and Max find the old house all but abandoned. Right away they begin to hear and see things --- music, ghostly figures, and their own names being whispered when no one is nearby. Nellie eventually seeks out her father, Hank, who has his own complicated and heartbreaking tale of growing up at Redfern Hill. As she tries to decide if she should leave, or stay and fight for the house, a local creep and Wade team up for their own nefarious purposes.

THE HOLLOW KIND provides plenty of backstory to what is happening with Nellie and Max in 1989. It all starts in 1917 with the courtship of August and his young bride, Euphemia, as he begins to take the reins of the turpentine and mill business from Euphemia’s father, George Baxter. George knows that there is something wrong with the land that comes to be known as Redfern Hill. August and Euphemia are soon indebted to the thing that lives in the forest and demands bloody tribute. Over the following decades, the forest dweller, who also resides in the house cellar, terrorizes the Redfern family and impacts those who live on their land.

Davidson effectively uses horror to explore intergenerational trauma. The characters are diverse and interesting. Nellie is a bad-ass mom and artist, Max is an intuitive kid, and Hank is a lonely and damaged soul. Euphemia is a particularly fascinating, if not sympathetic, figure. THE HOLLOW KIND is reminiscent of such horror novels as Matthew Lyons’ THE NIGHT WILL FIND US and T. Kingfisher’s WHAT MOVES THE DEAD, where the land itself is alive with malevolence. With current and dire realities of climate change and environmental concerns, this sort of horror feels timely.

Less may have been more here as the last fourth of the novel finds Davidson slowing down the narrative. The writing is beautiful, but the story is repetitive at times, and the book drags a bit toward its abrupt ending. There are no easy answers or pat resolutions here. Instead, readers are dropped down into the harrowing action just as much as the Redfern family. The monstrous force clearly predates 1917 and will continue its reign for the unforeseeable future. Inventive and rich, THE HOLLOW KIND is an entertaining and frightening family saga.