“The Glass Forest” by Cynthia Swanson – Threnody for a Marriage

Cynthia Swanson has always had an amazing superpower as a writer: the capacity to delve profoundly into the minds of her extremely complex characters and base the story around their unravelling.

In The Glass Forest we are treated to this sort of scenario as we follow a recently-married couple, Paul and Angie, who find themselves having to take care of the husband's seventeen-year-old enigmatic niece after her father commits suicide and her mother vanishes.

As the trio isolate themselves in a modern house on the edge of the woods some uncomfortable secrets begin floating to the surface, forcing Angie to question much of her own existence.

Cynthia Swanson's Glass House

While overtly it might seem like the ties binding people to each other are obvious and can be observed with common sense, the more profoundly we think of them, the more we realize things aren't exactly set in stone.

We have yet to unanimously define the abstract concept of love, and yet it is the sole thing holding countless people together, regardless of culture or religion.

Many would be hard-pressed to elaborate until reaching a final truth as to the reason they enjoy the company of certain of people and consider them friends. For most of us, these might just be some philosophical musings we ultimately brush away and forget.

For some however, they are the beginning of an unravelling, a profound introspective journey during which they are forced to reevaluate their lives... and that's precisely the fate awaiting Angie Glass in Cynthia Swanson's The Glass Forest.

The novel opens in the Autumn of 1960 as we are presented with a happy and newlywed couple, Paul and Angie Glass. With barely any time to settle into their happiness, the couple's existence is uprooted by a call from Paul's niece, Ruby.

As it seems, her father Henry committed suicide, and her mother Silja has simply vanished in thin air. Paul and Angie immediately drop every plan they had and move with the seventeen-year-old Ruby into her mother's home, an ultra-modern glass house at the edge of the woods.

Slowly but surely, Angie learns more and more about the Glass family and the rather complicated relations its members had and have with each other.

Most notably, she begins to understand the doomed marriage which ultimately bound Henry and Silja for so many years, as well as Ruby's role in the whole dynamic. It doesn't take long for Angie to turn the microscope inwards and question everything about her very own marriage.

Cauldron of Misfits

As one might expect from the setting and the author in question, this is very much a story revolving around the characters and their arcs, so I believe it makes all the sense in the world to start with them.

While there aren't many of them, each and every one brings a form of mystery to the table, a unique personality with many layers waiting to be discovered.

It becomes apparent none of them are really who they seem to be at first glance, and I believe Swanson managed to successfully weave this element into the story's progression.

In other words, learning about who these people truly are deep down inside becomes a driving force in motivating the reader to keep on going through the novel.

None of them fall victim to stereotypes, lazy writing or lack of imagination; each and every one of them becomes a supremely well fleshed-out human being with a vast internal world.

The differences between the characters become increasingly accentuated as we get closer and closer towards the end, and I believe their interactions all felt genuine and meaningful.

The relationship between Silja and Henry, for instance, starts out as looking like a poor working wife trying to support her deadbeat alcoholic husband.

As we advance we see them interact in flashbacks and gain a better sense of what drew them together in the first place, all they went through and what led the to the present.

In the process, our black-and-white view of their marriage fades in favour of grey and we come to see them as flawed human beings who did good and bad things while trying to make the most of the hand they were dealt.

A similar process occurs with the Angie-Paul-Ruby trio; as things begin to unravel they all seem like aliens compared to each other, but as things move towards the end we witness this three-piece puzzle come together as they work out the nature of their connections.

A Cellar of Secrets

The crux of the story might certainly hang with the development of the characters, but this doesn't mean it's all the plot has to offer.

To begin with, the Glass family does seem to be drowning in secrets waiting to uproot those who discover them in some fashion. Cynthia Swanson spreads out these revelations quite evenly throughout the book, creating a nice rhythm which rewards us on a regular basis.

Save for the very beginning of the book which I felt was a bit too slow for my taste, there was seldom a moment where I found myself bored with the state of the story.

We are always digesting some information that's been thrown at us, all while trying to anticipate what we're going to meet on the next turn.

At the same time, we are also treated to something of a detective mystery as Angie and Ruby are investigating the disappearance of Silja. While this part of the story certainly doesn't go to any extremes we've grown accustomed to in fast-paced mystery thrillers, it remains a very welcome addition as a source of intrigue and a reason for Angie and Ruby to bond together.

Additionally, the fact we are told the story from three different perspectives helps to add an overall feeling of excitement and uniqueness.

The new voices and points of view we cycle between prevent the overarching narrative from ever becoming stale or monotone, and are aptly used to give the reader intimate glimpses into the characters' minds, further strengthening our bond with them.

The Final Verdict

To bring this show to an end, The Glass Forest by Cynthia Swanson is a fantastically complex character-driven family drama and investigative mystery which gets virtually every beat right.

The characters are certainly worthy of the monikers unique and complicated, the story is taken to exciting and surprising places via three distinct narratives, ultimately leading to some profound internal journeys and philosophical musings.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys slower-paced psychological thrillers with family elements.

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Cynthia Swanson Personal site Cynthia Swanson is a writer and modern designer hailing from Denver, Colorado. She has already penned numerous short fiction stories in various periodicals including 13th Moon, Sojourner and Kalliope. The first novel she ever penned is titled The Bookseller, and it certainly shows promise for her as a future force in the world of literature.