The Siege at Trencher's Farm by Gordon Williams is best known and has been republished more often as Straw Dogs, the title of the 1971 film of the novel.
The film deviates wildly from the book (which director Sam Peckinpah said was "rotten"), the only thing they kept was the siege itself.
American academic George Magruder rents an isolated farm house for his family. Louise wants to introduce English life to their young daughter Karen. The remote Cornish town of Dando is insular and incestuous, populated by simpleminded farmers who haven't left a fifteen mile radius, mostly drinking together in a small pub. The new family are unwelcome outsiders, the men are hostile and resent them staying in a clean home where most sleep three to a bed. On the night of a Christmas party, one of the local children wanders out into the swirling snow and a panicked search begins. This is the night Harry Niles, an imbecilic mental home inmate charged years ago with killing a child is being transferred, the vehicle crashing in the snowstorm. When the Magruders bring him into their home, they realize who he is but the storm has knocked out all contact. Fear and panic escalate in a posse of drunken villagers, convinced that Harry has killed the missing girl - irrationally connecting the two events - and they find where he is. Armed and wildly out of control, the men attempt to force their way into the Magruder home, causing mild mannered George to face and release his primitive masculine power to defend his family.
This began quietly, with hints of the villagers irritation and vague memories of violent group mentality of years past. George and Louise have personal issues which take up the first half of the novel, and not knowing anything about the story, left me wondering where it was going. The night of the snowstorm, everything changes with the angry men outside brandishing a shotgun, demanding George release injured Niles to vigilant justice. The drunken men ramp up the violence, their excitement at a man to man fight overtaking logic. George also transforms into a "real man", matching their attack. Once the siege begins, barricading doors turns quickly into brutal beatings and the tension is almost unbearable - you will be on the edge of your seat and can't stop reading. Gripping and intense - I was left breathless. The last few pages mistakenly wrap things up, I could have been left in the destruction of the house.
A solid read that ramps up the action like a rollercoaster.
The Peckinpah film changed all the characters, the relationships, added a prolonged rape scene, and amped up the violence. Gordon Williams was "horrified" with the film and denounced it. A 2011 remake moved the story to America, even farther way from the novel. I think it's impressive Williams said he wrote the book in nine days - it has been called one of the "100 best Scottish books of all time". Beneath the action, this is a complex examination of masculinity and primal fears that it seems the film chose to bypass.
1971 / Tradeback / 159 pages
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