''The Wood of Suicides'' is a 2014 debut novel by Australian writer Laura Elizabeth Woollett. It centers on a 17-year-old girl's affair with her English teacher, after her father commits suicide.

Literary references

''The Wood of Suicides'' takes its title from Canto XIII of Dante's ''Inferno'', which describes a tortured wood where suicides are encased in bark. It also borrows heavily from the myth of Apollo and Daphne, referencing it explicitly at several points.

Reception

''The Wood of Suicides'' has received mixed to positive reviews. ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' wrote "an anxious, uneasy, and despondent anti-romance novel." '' Publishers Weekly'' wrote "The novel successfully creates a disturbing, ethically ambiguous effect, but the prose, though true to the voice of a lovelorn, troubled teenager, feels overwrought."

References

2014 Australian novels Psychological novels Novels set in California Fiction about suicide 2014 debut novels Permanent Press (publisher) books {{2010s-novel-stub