A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better

A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better
For twenty years, Daniel Hardesty has borne the emotional scars of a childhood trauma which he is powerless to undo, which leaves him no peace.
One August morning in 1995, the young Daniel and his estranged father Francis – a character of ‘two weathers’, of irresistible charm and roiling self-pity – set out on a road trip to the North that seems to represent a chance to salvage their relationship. But with every passing mile, the layers of Fran’s mendacity and desperation are exposed, pushing him to acts of violence that will define the rest of his son’s life.
Reviews
A STATION ON THE PATH TO SOMEWHERE BETTER is a shocking account of extreme violence and its complicated after-effects. It is a vivid and unsettling novel filled with surprises and insights.
Benjamin Wood follows up the stunning The Ecliptic with A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better, a meditation on fathers and sons, and the lasting effects of horrific acts of violence… I loved Wood’s second novel The Ecliptic, and this is a completely different but equally stunning piece of work.
A heart-breaking and heart-stopping new novel; a dark Northern noir that moves at breakneck speed but never fails to be tender and vulnerable as well as visceral and terrifying.
Tenderly dissecting the limits of love between parent and child while wriggling with a rich, thrilling tension, this palpably atmospheric story found its way beneath my skin and now lives there. Tell anyone who’ll listen, Benjamin Wood is one of the best novelists in Britain.
Wood takes the passing, shabby details of mundane landscapes and makes them jitter and throb with yearning and menace. A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better is his best work yet - a novel written from the gut, and with a correspondingly visceral power. A superbly unsettling account of trauma and cautious recovery.
Exploring the bond between father and son and the persistent, purifying power of childhood trauma, A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better is an unsettling, evocative story of self-acceptance and reconciliation.
A novelist to watch.
Wood’s outstanding talent takes a different turn on this (almost) unbearably gripping, disturbing and heartrending road trip. I couldn’t put it down and weeks later, it still won’t let me go.
An unputdownable domestic thriller that is also subtle and moving.
A chilling study of male violence, framed by a horribly, almost unbearably, moving portrait of a dysfunctional father-son dynamic, it left me in bits.
Now, with his third novel, A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better, Wood’s talent has burgeoned spectacularly. The book is a tremendous achievement, an unputdownable domestic thriller that is also subtle and moving... Travelling well beyond his earlier fiction, Wood has produced a tour de force that marks his creative arrival.
This is a novel of expertly woven tension and frightening glimpses into the mind of the deranged other.
Wood’s brutal exploration of toxic masculinity urges you on to the bloody climax — and leaves you grateful for the palate-cleansing coda, offering a closing note of redemption.
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