A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better

January 18, 2021
A 12-year-old English boy’s road trip with his father afflicts the rest of his life in Wood’s uneven latest (after The Ecliptic). As a boy, narrator Daniel Hardesty is obsessed with the sci-fi show The Artifex. His father, Francis, estranged from his mother, is a set builder for the show in Leeds, and promises Daniel a studio visit. Francis is also a liar, and Daniel, now narrating as an adult and who hoards VHS tapes of the show, warns the reader that the trip went badly (“when I think about that August week and what transpired, I know it is the fault line under every forward step I try to make”), but it takes a while for the reader to find out just how disastrous. Along the way, Francis’s temper and details of his philandering emerge, and he reacts violently when he and Daniel aren’t allowed onto the studio lot. On the road, Daniel listens to an Artifex audiobook, and passages from it augment the narrative but add nothing. The novel’s conclusion summarizes the immediate aftermath of Francis’s actions and offers scattershot scenes from Daniel’s adult life, but his soul-searching feels superficial. Before it’s over, readers will find themselves searching for the remote.