{"id":60876,"date":"2025-04-28T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T03:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=60876"},"modified":"2025-04-24T12:14:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T16:14:02","slug":"out-now-the-staircase-in-the-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2025\/04\/28\/out-now-the-staircase-in-the-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"Out Now: The Staircase In The Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Before we do anything else, let’s just do a little awkward whirligig dance, praising the dark gods beyond the steps and saying huzzah and hooray, The Staircase in the Woods<\/strong> is now on the shelves of bookstores and libraries and, ideally, on your bookshelf or lurking on your digital device. And so I offer unto you your procurement options —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Signed and personalized from\u00a0Doylestown Bookshop<\/a>, or from any of the stores I\u2019m visiting on tour — but also? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bookshop.org<\/a>,\u00a0Kobo<\/a>,\u00a0libro.fm<\/a>,\u00a0B&N<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Books<\/a>,\u00a0Amz<\/a>, PRH Website<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There. With that out of the way, some brief thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s weird<\/em> writing a book. You take all this time to write the first draft. Three months, six months, a year, whatever. Then it enters not one, but a series of chrysalises — subsequent drafts, developmental edit, copy-edits, page proofs, tweaks, covers, marketing plans, release plans, and then one day, in what feels like fucking forever since you wrote it, the book bursts free from that final chrysalis and — it’s the book! The one you wrote! It’s kind of maybe a butterfly now but it’s hard to tell because you’ve spent so long with it, and yet it’s been so long since you wrote it, it’s somehow both troublingly familiar and also alien at the same time? You hold it in your hands and stare it with an uncanny eye, whispering, “I know you. Don’t I?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then it gets weirder<\/em> because while the first draft was for me, everything since then has been for someone else. And now, now<\/em>, it’s all the way out there, in the world, and it’s not mine at all anymore, it’s yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing a book is this mad act of being lost and then finding your way but then getting lost again before getting found <\/em>again before getting LOST AGAIN and around and around you go. Carousels and labyrinths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, one supposes, staircases to [REDACTED].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway! It’s out! I hope you like it. Thanks to my agent, Stacia, for helping ensure it has its home — and thanks to Tricia, my editor, for helping shepherd me from what was a fascinating and essential Ship-of-Theseus-style edit, whereupon the second draft remains fundamentally the same as the first, yet also somehow, entirely different? And thanks too to the Del Rey team for helping make this book look as cool as it does. I’m a lucky boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is it about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a book where I’m pretty protective of spoilers, so here I’ll just go with what the cover copy says, which is pretty much the core of it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One friend walks up\u2014and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy\u2014and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, man, what is it really<\/em> about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohhh. I see what you’re asking. Like, what is it about<\/em> about, right? Well. I don’t know! I mean, some of that is for you to decide. For me, at least, it’s about… friendship is magic? Friendship is also hard especially as an adult? About how getting lost is important, about how regret can be a terrible self-inflicted burden, about how how if we don’t unload our baggage once in a while it will probably kill us? I dunno. You read it and tell me. I’m still kind of dancing around it, seeing through different windows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do I want it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it’s guaranteed to make you happy and spiritually fulfilled and also if you don’t buy it I’ll cover you in ants OKAY FINE none of that is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s creepy, it’s escapist, it’s puzzley. It’s emotional and dark (maybe the darkest book I’ve written, though I never write without a gilding of some light, if only to frame out the darkness). It’s twisty and turny and weird. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it’s kind of a sister book to The Book of Accidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it has a few little… Easter Eggs connecting my other books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because horror is comforting, in its weird way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because books are a pretty good value in this economy, many hours of escape from the *gesticulates wildly* for a pretty low price?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BECAUSE I WORKED REALLY HARD ON IT OKAY<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are there trigger warnings?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not formally, but I’m glad to offer what are, in my opinion, the triggers in the book, but I’m hiding them behind a ROT13 cipher so you can translate as you see fit in case you consider this stuff “spoilery” —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

frys-unez, fhvpvqny vqrngvba, qbzrfgvp ivbyrapr, puvyq nohfr, puvyq frkhny nohfr<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I read people saying nice things about the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian said this<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Chuck Wendig\u2019s\u00a0The Staircase in the Woods<\/strong>\u00a0(Del Rey) takes a seemingly straightforward format \u2013 ‘five teenagers went into the woods. Only four of them came out’ \u2013 and adds a healthy dose of horror to it. There\u2019s the police investigation, of course, asking Lauren, Nick, Owen and Hamish what happened to Matty that night. But the four friends know that they\u2019ll never be able to admit the truth \u2013 that a strange staircase appeared in the woods, and Matty walked up it and vanished at the top. Twenty years later, they have tried to forget what happened. ‘Don\u2019t even think about it. Don\u2019t think about that day. Don\u2019t put his name in your mind.’ But they\u2019re brought back together when the staircase reappears, and decide to go looking for the friend they abandoned years earlier. I won\u2019t spoil what lies at the top, but it\u2019s pleasingly nightmarish and very messed up. I\u2019ll be honest: it\u2019s more horror than thriller, so count yourself duly warned. But for all ye brave enough to enter here, it\u2019s a deliciously scary tale of friendship and courage \u2013 as well as evil, murder and all that jazz.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Michael Patrick Hicks at FanFiAddict<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Staircase in the Woods<\/em>\u00a0is a shifty, shifting hodgepodge of inspirations that ultimately come together in unique, and uniquely infectious, ways, inside and out. It cuts and crawls its way into you, burrowing into your heart and mind, twisting and changing as it grows deeper inside you, and isn\u2019t that just the best kind of horror?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Anna Dupre at Capes and Tights<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To say this is a haunting novel is a vast understatement with every choice existing as a ghost that lingers much longer than the turn of the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In what feels like an autopsy of the idea friendship itself,\u00a0The Staircase in the Woods<\/em>\u00a0leaves a resonant notion that speaks to each reader individually, a truly haunting narrative. This is a novel that revels in the darkest corners of any room, transcending the strange to deliver an emotionally tumultuous journey of complex friendship. While there is plenty to love on the surface of this story, the underlying tones, reckonings, and reflections of each character echo with a resounding force, compounding to form one remarkable narrative. Harrowing for all the right reasons,\u00a0The Staircase in the Woods<\/em>\u00a0gives depth to the topics we would rather leave shallow.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Rob Bedford at SFFWorld<\/a> —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Over the past half-decade or so, Chuck Wendig has risen to the very top of my must-buy, favorite horror writers (not that he writes\u00a0only\u00a0<\/em>horror, but most of his stuff has at least a dark undercurrent to it).\u00a0The Staircase in the Woods<\/em>\u00a0helps to cement his writing near or at the top of that list and is a delightful, emotional, resonant, terrifying novel.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh and did I mention all the very lovely blurbs for which I am grateful?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChuck Wendig weaves his magic once more, turning a lonely staircase in the woods into a searing, propulsive, dread-filled exploration of the horrors of knowing and being known.\u201d\u2014Kiersten White, author of\u00a0Hide\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Lucy Undying<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChuck Wendig is the Frank Lloyd Wright of horror, and here\u2019s his masterstroke of malaise.\u00a0The Staircase in the Woods<\/em>\u00a0is a true blueprint for terror.\u201d\u2014Clay McLeod Chapman, author of\u00a0Wake Up<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Open Your Eyes<\/em><\/strong>

\u201c[A] masterclass in character . . . Unputdownable, with imagery that cuts like a knife\u2014this is Chuck Wendig at the top of his game.\u201d\u2014Thomas Olde Heuvelt, author of\u00a0HEX<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Darker Days<\/em><\/strong>

\u201cChuck Wendig has given us another stunner.\u00a0The Staircase in the Woods<\/em>\u00a0is as mysterious, alluring, heartbreaking, ever-shifting, and unnervingly powerful as the nature of friendship itself.\u201d\u2014Nat Cassidy, author of\u00a0When the Wolf Comes Home\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Mary<\/em><\/strong>

\u201cHeart-wrenching and anxiety-inducing. Like if the crew from King\u2019s\u00a0IT<\/em>\u00a0were thrown into the chaotic hallways of Danielewski\u2019s\u00a0House of Leaves<\/em>,\u00a0The Staircase in the Woods<\/em>\u00a0will become lodged in your mind, if you let it in.\u201d\u2014Jenny Kiefer, author of\u00a0This Wretched Valley<\/em><\/strong>

\u201cChuck Wendig has crafted a very sinister take on the familiar urban legend. Highly original and deeply disturbing, this one will stick with you.\u201d\u2014Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of\u00a0Reluctant Immortals<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Haunting of Velkwood<\/em><\/strong>

\u201cThe Staircase in the Woods<\/em>\u00a0is delicious disorienting and deeply captivating. It will pull at the threads of your psyche in the best way until you feel like you just emerged from the most exquisite nightmare.\u201d\u2014Alaina Urquhart, #1\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0bestselling author of\u00a0The Butcher Game
<\/em><\/strong>
\u201cA searching portrait of four friends trying to find the things we all tend to lose as we grow older: faith, direction, hope, happiness, purpose . . . That\u2019s the heart of Chuck Wendig\u2019s work in these pages, and to read a book that illuminates such profound human truths is very rare indeed.\u201d\u2014Nick Cutter<\/strong>, bestselling author of The Troop<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you going on tour with this book?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heck yeah —<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(Hope to see you along the way! Except you, over there. You know who you are. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID.) Links to the events can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Chuck, what can I do to help?”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supporting the book is huge, and that can come in a variety of non-exclusive, non-exhaustive ways — you can review the book, you can tell your friends and family and foes, you can ask your local library to carry it, you can order it from your local indie bookstore and buy 500 copies and then use those copies to build a staircase in the woods that you walk up and then jump off of into [REDACTED] and y’know, yeah, there are a lot of cool ways. Even just sharing this post around helps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the case, I am grateful for readers like yourselves who read these books and care about them and share the book love around. I only get to exist by the fortune and grace of your reading attention, so for that — thank you so very much, and I’ll see you on the other side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before we do anything else, let’s just do a little awkward whirligig dance, praising the dark gods beyond the steps and saying huzzah and hooray, The Staircase in the Woods is now on the shelves of bookstores and libraries and, ideally, on your bookshelf or lurking on your digital device. And so I offer unto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-60876","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-fPS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60876"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60902,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60876\/revisions\/60902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}