The Lost Village
by Camilla Sten
translated by Alexandra Fleming
Blurb:
Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.
But there will be no turning back.
Not long after they’ve set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:
They are not alone.
They’re looking for the truth…
But what if it finds them first?
My Reaction:
This started off promisingly, with a creepy and interesting premise—abandoned village, about 900 people disappearing without a trace, evidence that something went terribly wrong—but at some point the plot began to run out of steam, and the ending didn't win me back, unfortunately. I can't get into my issues with the book without spoiling it, so keep reading past the spoiler alert, if you're interested in why this is only a 3-star read for me...
SPOILER
ALERT!!
Spoilers follow.
So, where to start? As I mentioned above, the premise is intriguing and creepy. I love the idea of a whole village vanishing without a trace—shades of Roanoke—and the fact that the book has it happen in the relatively recent past (1959), gives an interesting twist. The prospect of a Swedish ghost town, preserved untouched, like a time capsule? That's fascinating, too. Then there's the evidence of a brutal crime, the mystery baby, etc.—all very good.
Our modern-day ("Now") characters are a bit of a mystery, themselves, at first. Some of them are connected and have obvious history, but what are their different backstories? What's the source of the tension? What are the secrets they're keeping from one another? Some of it is precisely what you'll probably guess, but that's fine.
As for the "Then" characters (those living in the mining town in the 1950s)... Eh. That was a bit mixed. The dual timeline thing is sometimes effective, but at other times I groaned when we switched perspectives yet again. I think it interrupted the flow, at times.
Maybe this is just me. So many of the books I've read lately do this, splitting the story into multiple perspectives or different timelines, then flashing from one to the other throughout the novel. It can work, but it doesn't always work, and it almost feels like a crutch. I think it's overdone at the moment, and I'm ready for some thrillers that don't do this!
The set-up—getting to the village, starting their exploration—I loved it.
But then things started to unravel for me. I didn't know whether to expect something supernatural or not, but either way, it could have worked. Except it just didn't, really. It's not exactly surprising when "all is revealed", because by then you've pretty much worked it out on your own, but it's simply unbelievable.
So here are the things that annoyed me or didn't work for me:
First, I loathe the whole cult angle of the book. It's such a terribly boring explanation for what happened—so disappointing!!—and also not very believable here, in my opinion.
Yes, cults exist, but as I understand it, unless the members are raised in the cult (groomed from an early age, with no idea that there's any other way of living), they're targeted and gathered together from a wider area. It's not like a wannabe cult-leader can go somewhere and expect to recruit everyone in a five-mile radius into his madness, no matter how charismatic he may be. I find it doubtful that it's this easy to "convert" almost everyone in a whole, single village.
These characters are people who were raised in a normal, mainstream society (isolated, but definitely normal for the time). Surely there should have been more people who would be steadfast in their faith—strong enough in their personal convictions to resist the pressure to succumb to the mass hysteria. I guess the mine shutting down is supposed to be the disruption or catalyst that makes something like this possible, but... I strongly dislike that plot element, too, which brings me to the next point: What were these people thinking, staying in the village so long after the mine closed down?
I suppose I can accept that Elsa can't bring herself to abandon Birgitta, though what miracle she was waiting for to save the day, I can't say... As for everyone else in this town, why wouldn't they accept the inevitable and get out while they still had some savings?! It's not easy to leave behind your home, I know, but if you have no way of earning a living there and no prospect for improvement, you have to leave and start over! No-one was stopping them from leaving; they simply didn't want to, I guess. It's just... Well, it's just stupid that so many of these characters were just watching their savings dwindle away and refusing to take action. I don't believe that is likely, either. (Maybe I'm overestimating the level of common sense in the average human.)
But okay, you have a community of mostly good, Christian Swedes in the late 1950s. Times are tough (because they're too darned stubborn to take the plunge and get out of their dying town to start a new life somewhere else). Men have no work, and some of them turn to drink for escape (since apparently they lack the gumption to plan a literal escape for themselves and their families). Then this new, androgynous-faced pastor comes to town, and before you know it, he's converted everyone to his twisted cult religion.
(Ugh, I hate that plot point.)
And then he gets them riled up against one mentally ill (or challenged?) woman who can barely communicate and stays shut away in her own little hut, bothering no-one. ...Why do they go along with him on this? We're all familiar with the concept of a witch hunt, but this is modern times and all targeted at one single, solitary woman who doesn't have anything of value to covet and doesn't even venture out her own door! I find it difficult to believe that a whole village in 1959 Sweden could be so easily and quickly brainwashed to believe that she was any kind of threat to them, purely because some newbie preacher-man told them so.
Oh, good grief! I just can't bring myself to get into most of the rest of the nit-picking, because the basic premise annoys me so much, but I can't go without commenting on the king of all "um, what?" aspects of this novel:
Aina has survived for 60 years in complete isolation, with no human companionship, no medical attention, no technology, no nothing. All she has is what the other villagers had in their homes, for her clothes, shelter, and food. She's been living for 60 years on the old canned food left by people who were already starting to struggle for money. ...No, I don't believe that, either. No mention at all of her having a vegetable garden, hunting, or fishing, so I'm assuming she didn't. She just lived off a very limited supply of slowly disintegrating canned food for SIXTY YEARS.
And after a lifetime of this meager diet and no medical care, now in her 70s, she manages to overpower healthy young people who are fresh from civilization, with all the benefits of a consistent diet and modern medicine. Yes, in at least one case there are circumstances that work in her favor, but in general, I'm not convinced that this is at all likely.
Before wrapping up, I'm annoyed that the book tries to have it both ways: We have the physical threat of the Amazing Aina, 70-something-year-old miracle who doesn't need no stinkin' nutrition or medical care to take down those young whippersnappers—and yet we also have some supernatural elements that I don't think can be explained rationally.
Anything that Aina thinks she hears, sees, or knows can be discounted, because she's obviously cuckoo, but the others see and hear spooky, supernatural things, as well—things that I don't believe can be explained away by the existence of Aina. And then there's the odd case of Tone, who seems to have been temporarily possessed by the spirit of her grandmother, only to immediately return to her usual self as soon as the crisis has passed.
This probably shouldn't irritate me as much as it does, but there you have it. It was a disappointing ending. I didn't even get into how annoying the present-day characters are, but plenty of other reviewers covered that.
