For quite some time, I had wanted to dive into Wayward Pines, the trilogy by Blake Crouch. My curiosity was particularly sparked after hearing the author interviewed on Lloyd Chéry’s excellent podcast, C’est plus que de la SF.
If you would like to listen to this fascinating interview, in which Blake Crouch discusses his work as both a novelist and a screenwriter, you can find it on Spotify.
Welcome to Wayward Pines
In the first novel, Pines, Blake Crouch takes us to Wayward Pines, a small town in Idaho surrounded by mountains.
Ethan Burke, an American Secret Service agent, regains consciousness after an accident. Injured and disoriented, he quickly discovers that everything seems to be working against him. The sheriff refuses to give him back his personal belongings, he is unable to contact his superiors, and no one outside the town seems reachable.
Yet Ethan was sent to Wayward Pines to find two of his colleagues who had mysteriously disappeared…
Explaining anything more would reveal far too much. I will therefore stop here when it comes to the plot. Much of the enjoyment comes from the questions raised by the story and the gradual discovery of the secrets hidden within this strange little town.
Direct and highly visual writing
I found Blake Crouch’s writing particularly enjoyable if you are looking for something fluid and not too demanding.
He is not the kind of writer who tries to dazzle the reader with complex or especially elaborate prose. His style is direct, efficient and highly visual, almost as if the novel had been written as the screenplay for a television series.
This approach may not appeal to everyone. Personally, however, I believe that the main purpose of this kind of novel is to entertain, sustain the suspense and constantly make you want to turn the next page. In that respect, the book accomplishes its mission perfectly.
It is direct, fast-paced and enjoyable to read.
Looking for Twin Peaks
Even before starting Wayward Pines, I expected it to resemble Twin Peaks. However, I should point out that, at the time, I had never actually watched this cult series.
My father is a huge admirer of Twin Peaks and was deeply affected by it. As a result, I had formed a fairly precise image of the series: a mixture of police thriller and very subtle supernatural fiction, set in a small town filled with strange characters and hidden secrets.
After finishing the first Wayward Pines novel, however, I would not describe it in quite the same way. I would call it a particularly twisted thriller — I am deliberately choosing my words carefully to avoid spoilers — set in a very unusual town governed by certain boundaries that the reader gradually discovers.
I was then lucky enough to find Twin Peaks on ARTE’s excellent streaming service. It was finally time to satisfy my curiosity. I watched the first season and, as I write this article, I am halfway through the second.
For this article, however, I will focus exclusively on season one.
A first season that fell short of my expectations
Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch, Twin Peaks follows the investigation of Dale Cooper, an FBI agent sent to a small town in Washington State, close to the Canadian border. His mission is to solve the murder of Laura Palmer, a high school student who was very well known within the local community.
I have to be honest: I was a little disappointed.
I enjoyed this first season, but I found that it fell short of the immense reputation the series still enjoys today. Without revealing anything about the plot, it follows what initially appears to be a relatively conventional murder investigation, but one that is gradually infiltrated by strange, unsettling and sometimes genuinely disturbing elements.
That being said, I have the impression that this first season primarily serves to establish the setting, introduce the many inhabitants of Twin Peaks and create its distinctive atmosphere.
The series probably starts on a relatively small scale before eventually taking us somewhere much bigger. At least, that is what I imagine — and what the story is already beginning to suggest as I continue watching.
Remarkable direction and performances
Where I can understand the success of Twin Peaks much more clearly is in its direction, its atmosphere and, above all, its acting.
Kyle MacLachlan is absolutely brilliant as Agent Cooper. Many viewers will recognise him as Orson Hodge from Desperate Housewives, but he also played Paul Atreides in David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s cult novel Dune. More recently, he appeared in Fallout, the television series adapted from the famous video game franchise.
Mädchen Amick is also instantly recognisable as Shelly Johnson. Among her other roles, she appeared in Joey, the spin-off from Friends, where she played Sara.
More broadly, the actors contribute enormously to the identity of the series. Almost every character has a very distinctive personality, sometimes exaggerated, strange or intentionally theatrical. Even when the plot progresses slowly, the direction and performances maintain the feeling that something is definitely not right in Twin Peaks.
Two towns that are ultimately very different
After reading the first Wayward Pines novel and watching the first season of Twin Peaks, I can certainly see a few similarities.
In both stories, an outside investigator arrives in an isolated small town. He discovers a seemingly peaceful community filled with secrets, strange behaviour and a threat that is difficult to identify. Both stories also play with the persistent feeling that reality is concealing something.
For the moment, however, these similarities seem rather superficial to me.
Twin Peaks takes its time and combines a murder mystery with drama, soap opera, strange humour, supernatural elements and surrealism. Wayward Pines takes a much more direct approach and presents itself as a tense thriller designed to push the reader towards discovering what the town is really hiding as quickly as possible.
Both stories therefore use a mysterious small community as their starting point, but they appear to follow very different paths.
Despite my slight disappointment with the first season of Twin Peaks, my curiosity remains intact. I now want to discover just how far David Lynch and Mark Frost will take me, while also finding out what Blake Crouch has imagined for the rest of his trilogy.
The doors to Twin Peaks and Wayward Pines have only just begun to open…
Leave a Reply