Cowboys for Christ (2006) / The Wicker Tree (2011)

Author: Robin Hardy | Page Count: 216

"I am what the Goddess wants me to be.  All things to all men."

The Wicker Tree was originally published in 2006 as Cowboys for Christ, but the title was later changed to match the name of the filmed version (2011).  Normally I'd cynically bemoan such a change but the film was directed by the author, so it's not piggybacking sales on the strength of someone else's adaptation.

It’s Hardy’s semi-sequel to The Wicker Man (1978) but it has none of the same characters.  It's a sequel only in that it once again explores the similarities and differences between two different faiths, namely Christianity and Paganism.

Batting for God are two young born-again Christians from America: a successful pop singer turned evangelical voice of an angel, Beth Boothby, and her rather dim cowboy fiancé, Steve Thompson.  The two hopeful missionaries leave Texas to spread the good word in Tressock, a town of happy heathens situated close to the Scottish/English border.  Many of the Goddess-worshipping Scots welcome the pair warmly, especially Sir Lachlan Morrison and his wife Delia.  Lachlan is a businessman who also functions as a kind of well-respected town spokesperson.

The differences between the two cultures plays a crucial role.  Robin Hardy returns to the subject often, sometimes playfully and sometimes sensitively.  His writing is still occasionally awkward—there are continuity errors and unnecessary scenes that serve no purpose—but the structure, as before spread over just a few days, feels more natural than it did in The Wicker Man novelisation.

However, Beth and Steve are so fucking naïve that I found it impossible to get attached to either of them.  They walk into dangerous situations clearly signposted from a mile away.  If they weren't so Scooby-Doo dumb, if they had some believability to their actions and reactions, perhaps the exchanges and story twists would've felt more consequential and less shoehorned in.

Nevertheless, it's a better novel (but not a better story) than it's predecessor.  I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that the novelisation of the next planned film, The Wrath of the Gods (2015), follows the trend and is better again.

3 stuffed birds out of 5

The Wicker Man (1978)

Authors: Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer | Page Count: 285

‘From inside the asylum of his own skin, he looked around a world that he peopled suddenly, in his imagination, with strangers...’

A wise person once said ‘Never judge a book by its movie.’  It’s generally applied one way, to defend a good book from the damage done to its reputation by a bad movie, but sometimes the opposite perspective is needed.  Judging by how good The Wicker Man (1973) film is, I imagined the book to be at least equal in terms of impact given that it’s written by the film’s director, Robin Hardy, and uses much of the dialogue from Anthony Shaffer’s excellent screenplay verbatim.  I've only myself to blame for that assumption not panning out as hoped.

The protagonist is Police Sergeant Neil Howie.  On the surface he’s an honest, steadfast Episcopalian Christian respectful of the laws of man and God.  Beneath that, he’s forceful and secretly judgemental of others.  It’s possible to view him as a haughty zealot quick to strike down those who challenge his beliefs but that’s only half the story; he’s more complex than he first appears.  Deeper still, hidden from the world, he’s inexperienced and fearful of his own desires.

Howie is summoned to a remote Western Isle off the coast of Scotland.  It’s an isle filled with villagers that worship a different pantheon.  For Howie, the Christian God created everything in nature, so in theory even the heretical worship of false gods could be, by extension, reverence for his god.  That’s the depth of his arrogance and is in part responsible for his actions once there.

There’s a mystery to be unravelled.  It’s an unusual missing person case that may even be a murder.  Sergeant Howie's belief that his superior deity will guide and aid him in ensuring justice is done is only the beginning of his problems.

As the mystery deepens, the novel begins to unravel.  The quality of the prose drops and doesn't recover.  By the end it feels like fan fiction.

I’ll do us all a service by cutting the review short here and instead return to how I began.  Maybe it'll help someone else avoid the same level of disappointment that I had.  Never judge a book by its movie—even when the movie's good.

2½ circles to the nail out of 5