Review by Annabel
I’ve really enjoyed all three of Michelle Paver’s previous supernatural novels for adults; Dark Matter, Thin Air and the Gothic Wakenhyrst. Thin Air – the one I read first – is my favourite, so I was really looking forward to reading Rainforest, and it didn’t disappoint.
Dark Matter and Thin Air were both set in the 1930s; Rainforest moves forward to the 1970s. Our narrator is Simon, an entomologist, who is joining an archaeological team exploring an ancient Mayan site in the Mexican jungle. His focus is on mantids, those odd-looking but vicious predators of the insect world, he’s hoping he’s not needed for the main dig. As the novel begins he has arrived in Mexico City to await his journey into the jungle. Sleepless in his hotel room, he’s clutching his talisman.
I never told you about the talisman, did I? It’s the size of my thumb, neatly shrouded in my handkerchief. After I’d had the first coffee with her we were saying goodbye under our birch tree when her hair snagged on a twig and she pulled it free. When she’d gone I went back and retrieved several long strands and snapped off the twig and wound them round. I’ve had the talisman ever since. I keep it zipped in the breast pocket of my safari shirt, against my heart. I don’t care if that’s sentimental. I will keep it always.
We are only just on the second page by the end of that paragraph, and we can already sense something possibly, no, definitely, unhealthy in Simon’s precious reminder of the girl who stole his heart. She was Penelope, and as the story progresses, we will uncover their so-called relationship and what happened between them – I can’t spoil things for you by saying more.
Turning to the jungle though, Paver brings it to life brilliantly; lush vegetation, tropical humidity, occasional flashes of brilliantly coloured birds, fetid swamps and water teeming with life, also insects everywhere – except the particular mantids Simon wants to study of course, which are only found near a particular tree. Said tree is revered by the Yachikel, the local Indian tribe and persuading J.C., the Indian lad who pilots the dugouts to take him upriver to find them, initially meets with refusal. J.C.’s uncle is the tribe’s shaman or akij, who looks at Simon knowingly.
Simon will eventually persuade J.C. to take him upriver, not only in search of mantises, but also a particular plant that can be brewed into a potion which Simon secretly hopes will bring Penelope back to him. It’s all going to go a bit wrong, isn’t it?
Simon is a gloriously unreliable narrator, totally full of himself at the beginning, feeling superior to the others in the camp and not caring much about the locals either. But after his encounters with the shaman, the potion he brews, and its consequences, he is a broken man.
As the entire tale is told through Simon’s eyes, the opportunities to delve deeper into the tribal customs, the clearing of the rainforest, and the cultural appropriation of the Mayan religious objects are few, although he comes to have a new appreciation for the area and its people later. With the South American setting and indigenous tribe and its lore, there are some similarities to Natasha Pulley’s novel The Bedlam Stacks, which I reviewed here; that novel was built on Peruvian lore. Paver has a different emphasis, however, concentrating on the creepiness of the situation, rather than the Mayan history and mythology in Pulley’s equivalent, although this is there too. This does keep things pacey, for the tension is palpable, building nicely to a spooky and creepy climax, especially as certain aspects of Simon’s character are revealed.
If Thin Air is my favourite so far of Paver’s ghost/horror stories, this one comes a close second. I enjoyed it very much.
Annabel is co-founder of Shiny, and one of its editors.
Michelle Paver, Rainforest (Orion, 2025). Sphere paperback, 978-1398723221, 240pp.
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