In Idle Grounds, poet Krystelle Bamford’s debut novel, a group of cousins and their enigmatic summer day serve as a haunting exploration of childhood, family secrets, and the uncanny. Set in New England during the summer of 1989, the novel follows a family gathering at Aunt Frankie’s secluded home, a place entwined with familial history and deep-rooted mysteries.
The novel’s atmosphere is rich with a surreal intensity that captures the bizarre quality of childhood memories. The story is narrated from an adult’s perspective, although the voice itself is childlike in its leaps of logic, naiveté, and occasional dark humor. The children’s seemingly ordinary day spirals into something far more unsettling as they are forced to confront an inexplicable event that haunts them all.
At the heart of the novel lies the mysterious disappearance of three-year-old Abi. The children watch helplessly as she darts off toward something unseen, an event that is described with eerie detachment. “The house jumps and snuffs her out,” the narrator observes, underscoring the chilling, almost mystical quality of the situation. The adults, unfazed by the incident, dismiss it as nothing significant, which only adds to the surreal dread the children experience. Despite this, the cousins embark on a search for Abi, driven by a sense of urgency that only children can feel.
Bamford’s writing takes on a vivid, almost psychedelic tone, with everyday objects and scenes imbuing a sense of heightened strangeness. The children search the barn, where horses “dance and shake their rubbery faces,” and uncover two eggs resembling “little skulls” in the chicken coop. These moments of vibrant absurdity contrast with the underlying tension of the story, hinting at a deep, almost otherworldly connection between the family’s past and the present.
What truly sets Idle Grounds apart is Bamford’s portrayal of childhood itself. Her characters—decisive, autonomous, and peculiarly perceptive—are not the typical naive figures of fiction. Seven-year-old Autumn, for instance, is preoccupied with a new watch, consulting it frequently even when time is not the question at hand. Travis, the 12-year-old leader of the group, commands the children’s devotion and attention, despite his own age. Bamford deftly captures the peculiarities and obsessions of youth, portraying them with a clarity that feels both alien and familiar.
While the surreal and childlike elements of the novel may initially captivate, by the halfway point, the narrative’s disorienting qualities begin to feel slightly grating. However, this sense of unease is fitting. Childhood itself can often feel like an endless, unstructured stretch of time, with moments of inexplicable intensity. As Idle Grounds reaches its unsettling conclusion, the strange, dreamlike voice of the narrator comes into focus. In the end, it is through the child’s perspective that the story finds its deepest meaning—reminding us that the bizarre and the horrifying are always lurking beneath the surface, waiting to be uncovered.
Idle Grounds is a stunning debut, a brilliant and unsettling meditation on family, memory, and the uncanny mysteries of childhood. With its lyrical prose and unflinching examination of the strange, it marks Krystelle Bamford as a writer to watch.
