The Story Collector

The Story Collector blends elements of fantasy with grounded human choices, suggesting a world where unseen forces guide individuals toward a meaningful path that they must ultimately choose to walk. In doing so, Woods explores the relationship between destiny and choice, proposing that life unfolds through a dynamic interplay of fated signs and the active decisions characters make to follow them. For example, Sarah observes that Harold “losing [his mother] at such a young age had unquestionably shaped his life and led him to this most unusual of paths. She found it strange to think that they were all being guided by invisible hands to find meaning in loss” (354). Acknowledging the interplay between coincidences and overt supernatural interventions, the novel defines destiny as a collaborative dance between fate and personal agency.

Woods juxtaposes Sarah’s active choice to leave her husband with the uncanny sense that she is led onto the plane to Ireland by forces outside of her control, derailing her pre-established plans. Woods opens the novel’s first chapter by linking Sarah’s arc to a series of small, chance encounters that push her in the direction she needs to go: “Were it not for that tacky ceramic sheep in the gift shop, Sarah would never have even heard of Thornwood, much less got on a plane to Ireland and spent Christmas there” (3). Sarah feels inexplicably drawn to the ceramic sheep in the window of the Irish gift shop and impulsively buys an Irish newspaper headlined “THE FAIRY TREE THAT MOVED A MOTORWAY” (9). Her fleeting thought—“All of the magic seemed to seep out of her after The Big Bad Thing. Maybe Ireland was the place to find it again?” (10)—foreshadows her trip to County Clare even though she doesn’t plan to act on impulse. The dreamlike experience of waking up on the Irish flight with no memory of how she got there adds to the suggestion that fate intervened to direct Sarah’s path.

This sense of a larger pattern at work is reinforced by the discovery that Sarah is staying in Butler’s Cottage exactly 100 years after the American story collector, Harold, befriended Anna, establishing an overt link between the past and the present. Mr. Sweeney notes the parallel, observing, “You’re an American staying at the cottage, exactly one hundred years later!” (63). This link implies a fated connection exists across time, guiding Sarah toward the very story she needs to find in order to heal. However, while fate provides the signs, the novel emphasizes that characters must exercise personal agency to accept the tools the universe places in their path. A storm drives Sarah into the woods, where she finds Anna’s diary, but Sarah chooses to read it. Fate places her in the lives of the Thornwood community, but Sarah chooses to befriend and, eventually, confide in them, which drives her arc forward.

In Anna’s narrative, Woods dramatizes this interplay between fate and agency through supernatural intervention. When George assaults Anna, a swarm of bees appears from nowhere to attack him—a supernatural, protective force compelled by the spirit of her deceased sister, Milly, who materializes at a crucial moment to intervene. These otherworldly aids provide care and support rather than negating Anna’s own will and agency. She must still find the courage to defy George and, later, to navigate the consequences of his death. The final chapters of the novel emphasize Anna’s personal agency through the choices she makes to care for her family, giving up the possibility of a life with Harold in New York. After Oran tells Sarah that Anna never used the tickets that Harold sent her year after year, choosing instead to stay in Ireland to care for her family and marry Danny, “Sarah [shakes] her head in disbelief. Danny, the rebel who had helped Harold to escape. Anna had chosen to marry the very man who had risked his life to save her one true love” (350). The novel resolves the tension between destiny and free will by portraying them as intertwined forces that work in concert to shape a meaningful life.