The Book of Accidents – Chuck Wendig
100-Word (or Less) Synopsis: Nate and Maddie Graves return to their hometown in rural Pennsylvania, and it doesn’t take long before the town’s secrets — and their own — threaten to destroy them and their teenage son, Oliver.
Expectation: An Americana-hued ghost story.
Reality: Heavy on ambition, light on originality. You’ve heard variations of this story before — and by stronger authors.
Recommended For: People who like their reads spooky and kooky.
Why I Read It: The premise sounded intriguing, and I liked Wendig’s “Wanderers” well enough.
My Take:
When I compare one novel to another it is more to give someone an understanding that it is tonally similar or contains connected ideas. It is not done to oversell something as the next [insert popular novel here].
My entire time listening to “The Book of Accidents,” Chuck Wendig’s ambitious but meandering family in crisis ghost story, I could not help but compare it to two other novels — Blake Crouch’s “Dark Matter” and Stephen King’s “11/22/63” — because the plots are so similar it had to be more than coincidence.
Mark Twain may have said there is no such thing as an original idea, and I’m okay with that thought if the latest version brings something new to the table. And, in the case of “Accidents” that only happened about a third of the time.
So, if you like the Crouch and King stories, you’ll probably find a lot to like here, but if you’re looking for something high ambition and originality, “Accidents” is mostly a miss.
Below are a few reasons why I found Wendig’s latest to be recursive [spoilers ahead].
The Plot: Time/dimension traveling, butterfly effects and alternate world doppelgängers trying to snuff out the main world’s protagonist are all critical elements.
King did the time/dimension traveling and butterfly effects about better than anyone recently with “11/22/63.” With “Dark Matter,” Crouch built a compelling narrative around encountering alternate versions of yourself (and your family) with a plot that was fast-paced and original.
Wendig’s spin has those elements being more supernatural and gorier, yet the core of what he is trying to achieve isn’t far off from what King and Crouch did. He does get some originality points by giving each of the three leads — Nate, Maddie and Oliver — their own battles and compelling plots rather than being secondary to one another.
The Why: Wanting to take over someone else’s life.
With “11/22/63” our character believes that preventing John F. Kennedy’s assassination would’ve prevented future world calamities — it’s altruistic. In “Dark Matter” an alternate version of our main character wants to know how his life would’ve been different had he not created world-jumping technology — it’s selfish.
In “Accidents” the idea is a mixture of altruism and selfishness but with a lot of malevolence. A demon is pulling the strings, and he jumps from world-to-world destroying everything in his wake. Again, the ambition of Wendig’s story is probably only matched by King’s, but it also doesn’t hold up as well as the plot pushes forward.
Ultimately, I enjoyed most of “Accidents.” I thought the background given to each character, the urban legends surrounding the town, the social commentary and the spook factor were well above average.
But I couldn’t fully immerse myself in the story for a couple reasons. One, Wendig’s interludes (something he used to great effect in “Wanderers”) ended up being more confusing than helpful.
Was the serial killer at the beginning the demon or was he possessed? Are the “disciples” all victims or fellow time travelers? Are the animals evil too? These plot points are used to ratchet up the tension but are never given a satisfactory answer.
Two, the possible supernatural powers given to both Oliver and Maddie, never felt authentic to me, even though Wendig did use them in the plot effectively.
All things considered; this novel was a solid good not great but will likely find the audience that appreciates these types of stories more than I do. In the meantime, I’d still recommend “11/22/63” or “Dark Matter” over “Accidents” any day.
The audiobook — narrated by Xe Sands and George Newbern — was okay. The narrators did a well enough job, but the production wasn’t good. Sands always sounded far away, and Newbern gave a lot of gravitas where it didn’t appear to be needed.
Rating (story): 3/5 stars
Rating (narration): 2.5/5
Formats: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: August 8 - 14, 2021
Multi-tasking: Good to go. I mostly exercised and did yardwork while listening. I probably missed some details but was able to track with the main themes.
