review from 1986In one of the most intelligent cover quotes ever, Michael Bishop calls A Hidden Place "reminiscent of vintage Theodore Sturgeon in its moving and authentic evocations of place and people." In a genre dominated by ideas, Sturgeon stood out as an author prepared to deal with characterization, emotion, and values. In his first novel, Wilson clearly demonstrates these same strengths.This is a compelling novel. Once you pick it up you can't put it down. It's not that it's an edge-of-the-seat thriller, the sort of fast paced plot that keeps you guessing what happens next. Hell, the cover tells you the whole plot. It's just that once you start, Wilson plunges you into such an emotional maelstrom you have to read through to the end, because you are driven by the same needs as the characters. The only way you are going to be able to get to sleep at night is if you, like the characters, work it through to Wilson's resolution.What makes this particularly scary is that Wilson is clearly not the kind of guy to give you a throw away happy ending. If the characters win their struggles (mostly with themselves) all well and good; but if their basic flaws defeat them, then they're gonna die.And what makes that unnerving is that nearly everyone in this book gets a turn as viewpoint character. You just know that they can't all make it, that at least some of these weak and deeply flawed people are going to succumb. And they're probably going to take the others with them.But an uncertain ending is only a small part of the tension in this book. The real heart of the work is the way Wilson forces you to see each of the characters from their own point of view. Just when you start to despise this or that villian, Wilson pops you inside the bastard and makes you feel what the character feels. Wilson doesn't allow you to write anybody off with a simple condescending 'bad guy' label; everybody is a victim in Wilson's universe, and everybody's guilty to at least some extent. Unfortunately, that means you too, since you are forced into one viewpoint character after another.So, you feel guilty about sympathizing with some very unsympathetic characters, but at the same time you feel quilty for having hated them before you understood what it was like to be them, and that makes you feel guilty about hating their real world analogs. Without realizing quite what's happening, you are caught up in the same sort of internal conflict as most of Wilson's characters.Wilson is particularly effective in this because this is a book about fans. Not literally, of course, but in its emotional targets. The protagonist (if you can identify one character as such) is the archetypal fan, the loner alienated from the rest of society. The antagonists are fundamentalists, small town vigilantes, rapists, childabusers, bigots; all the too easily stereotyped and dismissed enemies of bookish urban liberals (i.e., fans). I'm not sure which is more uncomfortable: squirming inside the suddenly understandable persona of the antagonists, or seeing one's own weaknesses and powerlessness reflected in the protagonist.Wilson wraps all these characters in the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of the deepening 1930s depression. The setting is not unlike a small room in which the walls are slowly closing in, building up an intolerable pressure on the central characters. To this Wilson adds the slow fuse of a freight train bearing down on our protagonists, tied as it were to the tracks.This is an emotional book. It's about emotions. The central metaphor is of a mirror for the emotions into which the characters are compelled to look, though they are uncomfortable with their reflections. We perhaps understand their discomforture as we look into the mirror that is the book and see ourselves reflected in the characters we might have become had circumstances called forth those aspects of ourselves.This is a good book. Maybe even an important one. As a first novel, it's absolutely amazing, and I was severely disappointed that Wislon failed to attract the critical attention and award nominations he so clearly deserved.
Beautifully written, just like everything I've read by Robert Charles Wilson so far. He's one of the few authors whose entire collection of books is now on my shelf. It almost doesn't matter what he writes about, it's written well, with a compelling plot and interesting characters. I wish I'd discovered his books sooner. A Hidden Place is truly unique, a combination of science fiction and depression-era historical fiction. I can imagine some readers would be frustrated by the fact that the sci fi part of the plot doesn't really emerge until about 40% in, but for me that just added to the suspense. I had just begun to think to myself, "I thought I was reading science fiction" when I got to that part of the plot. It's not five stars good like Spin, but it's definitely worth the read.
What do You think about A Hidden Place (2002)?
This is supernatural sci-fi/fantasy set in small-town depression-era America and is highly redolent of Stephen King. It may not be as suspenseful as King's better work--the plot is dull and predictable at times--but the work is more poetic and literary than King, as if King and Bradbury wrote a book together. This was my introduction to Robert Charles Wilson. Despite that it's one of his lesser novels, it's a well-developed, gorgeously woven story that certainly makes me want to read more of the author's work.
—Abner Rosenweig
All of Robert Charles Wilson's books, that I've read, have been excellent, and all of them have been quite different from the others. He is a very unpredictable, yet consistently good author. This book had a very beautiful and poetic sense to it, almost as if it MUST have been written by a woman (sorry if that is a stereotype). The characters were very well developed and the plot unpredictable. Wilson has written some "Hard Science" SF books, but this NOT one of them. I would call this book "Romantic Fantasy" long before I would even call it "Science Fiction". The plot centers around a couple of misfit twenty-somethings in a small-town depression-era mid-west setting, and their encounters with a strange alien "woman". HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
—John
reviews.metaphorosis.com4 starsTravis, a young man come to live in a small plains town with his estranged aunt and uncle, finds there Anna, their mysterious lodger, and Nancy, as much a misfit as himself. Together, they gradually get more involved with Anna and with each other.I think A Hidden Place was the second Wilson book I read, after Gypsies. Or perhaps the other way around. Either way, the books struck me, and I picked up several of his books in the late 80s and early 90s. There was nothing startling about them - just quiet, somewhat eerie books about normal people. In some ways, they're like Clifford Simak's books or Jack Finney's, but more distant from their central characters.A Hidden Place (the title really has little to do with the book) takes place in a Depression-era, Steinbeckian world of freight trains, hobo jungles, and small town rigidity. The events are minor, the concerns mainly personal. Travis is a classic loner, but a genuine one, not a Hollywood cutout. Nancy is an equally classic small town girl looking for something more. Wilson does a very nice job of presenting two young people trying to find themselves, with the mysterious stranger more of a catalyst than focal point. He switches points of view frequently but clearly, including a deft hand with Bone, the rangy hobo traveling the country with no clear purpose. Most of the foreground characters, good and bad, feel like real people, though some key minor actors are a bit flimsy. Sadly, it's only in the middle of the book that Nancy really emerges, fading back after that to her supporting cast role.This one of Wilson's stronger books, from a more character-centered early period, before he went slightly off track with Bios and later the Spin series. It's about mysteries and people more than answers.Not the book if you're looking for wild adventure and space opera, but definitely worth your time for something smaller, closer, and more human.
—Metaphorosis
