Critical Praise

"Clever, imaginative, and even darkly humorous, Craig's novel, like a book of beloved fairy tales, gives us a hero to root for and an inventive, multi-layered story."

——Booklist

"A complex, original, and often moving book, which also manages to be entertaining."

——The Mail on Sunday

"A dreamy, spellbinding novel. . . . Craig brings chilling suspense and dark humor to a stylized study of the loss of childhood innocence, the complexities of creativity and the correlation between artistic genius and mental health--all expertly cloaked in the symbols and metaphors of fairy tales."

——Publishers Weekly

"The notable strengths of her writing lay in her sardonic sense of humor and the ability to spin a comedy of adult manners around the serious predicament of children."

——The Times Literary Supplement

"Witty and disturbing. . . . A novel of both accomplishment and charm."

——The Daily Mail

"Just as the best fairy tales do, In a Dark Wood exposes rich depths of meaning through a relatively simple plot."

——The Winston-Salem Journal

"In a Dark Wood is a first-rate story--both psychologically acute and mythologically convincing--and often very funny as well."

——Alison Lurie

"Craig's wonderful page-turning storytelling will keep you up way past your time for bed."

——The Times (London)

"In a sly blend of southern gothic and British wit, Craig weaves . . . a story that is both whimsical and unsettling."

——People

"A sneakily beguiling book."

——Salon

"In a Dark Wood explores the immensely complicated, often open borders between imagination and mental illness. Craig has written a profound account of darkness, and she has done it in a passionate, original, and beautiful way."

——Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind

"Amanda Craig's In a Dark Wood is tantalizing, dark, mysterious and strange. Its deft insights cut sharply as it evokes the inside of mental illness with uncanny lucidity and humor."

——Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon

"[An] absorbing, often dreamlike story."

——The New York Times

"Craig. . . . reconfigures archetypal characters and situations. . . . finding the hope and humanity in a frightening and confusing disease."

——The Village Voice