The Croning by Laird Barron
The Croning by Laird Barron takes a cosmic horror approach, where things feel off in the background and you can sense this deep, unsettling darkness long before it ever really shows itself. The pacing can feel slow at times, but that just adds to the tension as it builds. By the time you realize how terrifying things really are, you’re fully immersed.
The Prologue: An Ancient Tale
The novel kicks off with a kind of prologue that feels like an old folk tale. It’s a twist on the story of Rumpelstiltskin, but way darker. In this version, there’s an ancient, malevolent force tied to a woman’s secret, and the man trying to uncover it. It gives you a glimpse of something primordial, something evil that’s always been lurking in the shadows. It sets the tone for the whole book—a sense that there’s an ancient darkness behind the curtain of reality, and we only see fragments of it.
The prologue’s not directly tied to the main plot right away, but it plants a seed in your mind that keeps growing as you go along.
Enter Don Miller
The protagonist is this guy named Don Miller, a geologist. He’s an older man, retired and married to a woman named Michelle. Don’s just a regular, kind of oblivious guy who’s had a pretty normal life—or so he thinks. He’s got some holes in his memory, and there are hints that Michelle is keeping secrets from him, but at first, none of it seems that unusual.
They’ve had a good life together, traveling around the world because of Michelle’s work, but Don’s getting older and things seem to be slipping out of his grasp. You get a sense that he’s lived his life in the shadow of his wife’s career, not fully aware of her connections or the world she’s a part of. There’s this feeling that Michelle knows way more about what’s going on than he does, but he’s just not putting the pieces together yet.
The Occult and Unseen Threats
What Barron does so well is the slow reveal of these cosmic, occult elements. As Don looks back on his life, strange incidents start to resurface in his memory. There was a terrifying event in Mexico decades earlier, something involving a black mass, cultists, and unspeakable horrors. He can’t quite remember the details, but the dread he felt during that time lingers.
The sense of something vast and terrifying lurking behind the scenes starts to bleed into Don’s everyday life. Michelle’s frequent absences and mysterious behavior seem to suggest she’s involved in something far beyond the scope of normal life, maybe even some dark, ancient cult.
The tension builds as Don becomes more aware of his missing memories and strange gaps in time. There are hints that some dark force has been watching him and Michelle for years, maybe even manipulating them, and Don’s ignorance feels like a shield that’s starting to crack.
The Black Ram Society
One of the key elements of the novel is this secretive group called the Black Ram Society. They’re an ancient cult with ties to some unspeakable, otherworldly entity. They’ve been around for millennia, pulling strings behind the scenes, working toward some horrible, incomprehensible goal. Michelle seems to have some connection to them, though Don’s never really been clear on what they do.
As the novel progresses, Don starts piecing together that Michelle’s family has been involved with the society for generations. There’s a recurring theme of the powerful, the elite, being drawn into these dark, hidden circles, using their influence to further the society’s goals. What makes it scarier is how casual they seem about it, like they’re just carrying out traditions that have been in place for ages, while the rest of the world remains blissfully ignorant.
Unearthing Old Memories
The novel shifts back and forth between the present day and Don’s memories. As he unravels his own past, we learn that strange and terrifying things have been happening around him for decades. There’s a scene where he revisits a cabin in the woods, a place he once stayed with Michelle, and the memories that resurface there are chilling. He starts to remember things—like strange voices, unnatural presences in the woods, and the feeling of being watched by something far older and more malevolent than he can comprehend.
Throughout, Barron does this great job of giving you a sense of dread without fully showing you what’s behind the curtain. You get glimpses of these horrific, alien beings, but they’re never fully revealed. It’s like Lovecraft, where the unknown is more terrifying because you can’t fully grasp what you’re dealing with.
Cosmic Horror at Its Core
At the heart of The Croning is cosmic horror. Don’s journey is about coming to terms with the fact that the universe is filled with forces and entities far beyond human understanding or control. There’s this feeling that reality is just a thin veneer, and beneath it, there’s a vast, chaotic void filled with ancient gods and monsters that we can’t even begin to comprehend.
The idea that Don’s life has been shaped by these unseen forces, that he’s been a pawn in some larger, incomprehensible game, adds to the horror. And what’s even worse is the idea that Michelle has known all along and has been complicit in it. She’s part of this world that Don barely understands, and the more he learns, the more he realizes how deeply he’s tied to this ancient, horrifying conspiracy.
The Crumbling Facade of Normalcy
One of the things Barron does really well is show how the facade of normal life crumbles as Don delves deeper into the truth. What starts off as a pretty grounded story about an aging man slowly turns into something far more sinister. The deeper Don goes, the more he loses his grip on reality. The novel plays with the idea that what we see as normal life is just a comforting illusion, and that beneath it lies a world filled with madness and horror.
There are these moments where Don is going about his day-to-day life, and then something happens—a brief flash of something strange or otherworldly, a memory that doesn’t make sense—and it’s like the ground shifts beneath his feet. It’s disorienting, and you start to question how much of Don’s reality has been real and how much of it has been manipulated by these dark forces.
The Descent into Madness
By the time Don really starts to understand what’s going on, it’s almost too late. His whole life, his whole perception of the world, has been built on lies. As the novel nears its climax, the sense of impending doom becomes almost suffocating. Don’s mind starts to unravel as he comes to grips with the cosmic horrors lurking just beneath the surface of his life.
Barron doesn’t hold back in the final stretch. Things get dark, and the novel veers into some truly terrifying territory. But, like I said, I won’t spoil the ending for you. Just know that the sense of dread and unease only deepens as the truth comes out.
Final Thoughts
The Croning is one of those horror novels that really sticks with you. It’s not a fast-paced, action-packed kind of horror—it’s more subtle, more psychological. The horror is in the slow, creeping realization that the world isn’t what you think it is, and that there are ancient, malevolent forces at play that you can’t even begin to fight or understand. It’s cosmic horror at its best, with a real focus on atmosphere and tension. If you’re into stories that leave you questioning reality and feeling like you’ve only scratched the surface of something far more terrifying, this one’s worth checking out.