Book Reviews: The World More Full of Weeping

World More Full of Weeping
by Robert J. Wiersema
★★★★

This creepy little book is part horror story and part fairy tale. A divorced dad, Jeff, lives with his 11-year-old son Brian in rural British Columbia. Their home sits next to a forest which Brian spends all of his free time exploring. One day Brian goes missing and from that point forward we see the story from both Jeff and Brian’s points of view.

I knew almost nothing about this book when I picked it up. The cover is gorgeous and the title comes from William Butler Yeats' poem "The Stolen Child." In high school my best friend gave me a picture she had drawn of a fairy (below). On the drawing she had written these lines from Yeats’ poem,

“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.”

Because of that, the title of the book immediately caught my attention and I knew I had to read it. I won’t give a single thing away about the plot, because what I enjoyed the most about it was not knowing where the story would end. I will say that Wiersema maintains a tense suspense throughout the story. It’s easy to picture yourself in the shoes of both the curious young boy and the terrified father. This is a quick read, but definitely worth it.

“You never really get a look at your own life, until you’re showing it to someone else.”

In addition to the novella, the book also contains an essay about fictionalizing real places when you write. It was a really interesting to read about the thin, but essential, line between an author’s hometown and the nonexistent setting in his novel. Even though the places may be indistinguishable, Wiersema stresses the importance of always recognizing the difference between them. The author needs the freedom to imagine whatever character or events they want and if they see the place as real they won’t allow themselves to do that. Fascinating, no?

Second image drawn by my friend.