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Dark Harvest

3.65 of 5 stars 3.65 · rating details · 1,090 ratings · 161 reviews

Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and named one of the 100 Best Novels of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, Dark Harvest by Nroman Patridge is a powerhouse thrill-ride with all the resonance of Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery."

Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol’ Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he...more

ebook, 176 pages

Published September 4th 2007 by Tor Books (first published October 11th 2006)

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Sep 25, 2011 Emily rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: pumpkin smashers, want to leave your piss-ant town?, Favorite month is October

Recommended to Emily by: Dan Schwent

Shelves: horror

I have no problem with swearing. Actually, I sort of enjoy it when it's done well. And when good swearing is written into a novel along with a combination of gory horror, small town secret societies, and pumpkin head boys, I could probably learn to LOVE IT. AND WORSHIP IT.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for me. I LIKED THE CONCEPT OF a Pumpkin head guy. I'll admit it. I wanted to feel what the pumpkin boy felt, I wanted to see the pumpkin boy murder throngs of people in an orange/goopy/seedy mass pulverization of HUMAN LIFE, but most importantly, I wanted him to SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF ME with his filthy, horrible pumpkin boy smiley face that we all have grown to love and FEAR since frickin' childhood, yes? Remember the JACK-O-LANTERN when you were eight years old? That was some scary ass shit until the pumpkin smashers got to it and depraved us of our fear. Bastards.

I love pumpkins so much, I've even decided the p-k dipthong is the best one out there. So there. I'm a dipthong snob. I'll admit it.
But, couldn't get into this. Even with pumpkin boy driving and shooting a shotgun (!!!), I just couldn't get into it. And you know why? Because I've got an anal retentive mind that wouldn't let me get around the BAD SWEARING IN THIS BOOK! Phrases like:

"You take care of this freak as he comes walking into this place tonight. He's your responsibility. After all, you're the guy that squirted him out of the end of your dick." (pg. 127)

EWWWW!!! Even though rationally I know babies do start as a squirt, I'd rather NOT be reminded of this in a chinzy horror novel that I'm reading just to get close to a real live PUMPKIN BOY! Ickity puke. And seriously, as a single woman, the last thing I want to think of when I see/smell/hear/feel sperm is the fact that a baby could be formed--who could grow into a teenager---who could then be abducted and made into a PUMPKIN MAN!! Seriously, consider my womb vacant for all eternity because THAT's not happening, boys.

One more example:

"Well, fuck me with a fistful of splinters," Ricks says. "This boy is good."

Please, please do not use the word f*&@ and splinters in the same sentence....EVER. And the fact that the world "fistful" is also in that sentence makes me want to barf all over the cover of this book, which falsely advertises coolness by the demonic, fire-ball of a pumpkin boy doing crazy things in the cornfield. Which, I'll admit, DOES happen. But, if you're like me and get pissed off when people are weak and do things like say "fricking" instead of "frickin'" (note the apostrophe), or say "a-hole" instead of "ass wipe", or "f-bomb" instead of "fucking INSANE SHIT"...well then, this book will piss your rude ass off. Guaranteed. (less)

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Oct 19, 2012 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: july-read, bram-stoker-winner

It's Halloween time in a Midwestern town 1963.
A Haunting descendth upon a town! The October Boy cometh!
But why? And what is his origin? One thing for sure is he has a Jack O Lantern head. There is some dark goings on in this town once a year, will this be the last of its occurrences?
The October Boy is something of a creation in same way Frankenstein created his being in which both are sent on a path of fear and terror amongst the town dwellers.
Written in a nice prose the story flows well, a st...more

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Oct 31, 2011 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bram-stoker-winner, july-read

It's Halloween time in a Midwestern town 1963.
Someone haunting is amidst the town The October Boy cometh, but why and what is his origin one thing fir sure is he has a Jack O Lantern head. There is some dark goings on in this town once a year will this be the last will it come to an end?
The October Boy is something of a creation in same way Frankenstein created his being in which both are sent on a path of fear and terror amongst the town dwellers.
Written in a nice prose flows well, a story of t...more

9 likes · like · see review

Apr 26, 2013 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Buddy-read with Kasia

What this reads like as of page 42: "Go to aisle 12. Move halfway down the aisle. On your right - no, your left - look down past the top, then the fourth, then the third, then the second, and finally the bottom most shelf. There, look at the jarred pickles. You want to pick up the jar that has 12 fl. oz. To the right and left of this jar will be smaller and larger jars. You want to avoid those. Don't pick up the smaller or larger jars. You want to pick up the one that says 1...more Buddy-read with Kasia

What this reads like as of page 42: "Go to aisle 12. Move halfway down the aisle. On your right - no, your left - look down past the top, then the fourth, then the third, then the second, and finally the bottom most shelf. There, look at the jarred pickles. You want to pick up the jar that has 12 fl. oz. To the right and left of this jar will be smaller and larger jars. You want to avoid those. Don't pick up the smaller or larger jars. You want to pick up the one that says 12 fl. oz. Now, extend your arm. At the end of your arm is your hand. And the end of your hand are fingers. Reach down with your arm, move your hand into position, use your fingers to curl around the jar of pickles that is 12 fl. oz. (remembering not to pick up the ones on either side, the ones that are smaller or larger). Using the same force of motion you used to pick up the jar of 12 fl. oz. pickles, reverse it now and bring the jar of pickles back to you, resting them at eye level. Make sure, again, that the label on the jar says 12 fl. oz. Now extend your arm and place the jar of pickles into the grocery cart. You are now ready to move to aisle 11." .. ... .. .. PICK IT UP, MAN!

Done. One word: conflicted. On the one hand, the basic story is good. Almost very good. But the writing. Explaining for ten pages what could be conveyed with the same amount of understanding and feeling in two, max. And the writer being in love with his own writing voice. And never understanding whether the horror was organic, supernatural, what. For a story that belabored all the easy answers, spending page after page explaining what was already understood, not a single sentence was spent giving the reader any idea whether this was a scenario like Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," or if it was something like the Hunger Games (this was published before Collins' novel). Not a sentence.

If you can wade through the overwrought writing, you'll find some sympathetic teenage characters. I felt more for them than I did for Katniss and the gang when we first met. But when you found yourself becoming immersed inside a scene or a character's persona, the writer could not resist throwing around these pseudo hardboiled musings, and those catapulted you out of the story like a bullet from a gun. <--- That right there is another problem. The author used at least two or three of these bloated similes per page. There were times that I found myself chuckling at events that for the characters were not funny at all. But the language and diction was just soooooo overdone!! Finally, finally, by page seventy (give or take) you begin to understand the reason for the aggressive style. But it still doesn't fit, exactly. I read this with my buddy Kasia and while discussing it she said something that paints the perfect picture: she imagines the author getting wasted on a fifth of whiskey and then attempting to do his better Philip Marlowe. Nostalgia. <--- And that's another problem. The story is set in the early 60s and you know this because the author chooses blatant details to tell you THIS STORY IS SET IN THE 1960S, SEE??? Again, with more subtlety, this would work. But as it is is pulls you out of the story like a dentist extracting a tooth.

But for all the faults, I still felt for the characters. Most of them. And characters are for me the deciding factor in a story. If you like horror stories, you may enjoy this one. But skim it. Skim it like Rubell in the backroom of Studio 54. (less)

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Oct 27, 2007 Peggy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fall is here, and with it, that greatest of holidays, Halloween. There's a chill in the air (metaphorically, if not actually), and the times call for a matching chill in reading material. What could be better than a good scary story on a chilly Halloween night?

I came to Norm Partridge's Dark Harvest with high hopes: I'm a big fan of his collection The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists, so I already knew he could write. But even having read him before, I wasn't prepared for how quickly this book suc...more Fall is here, and with it, that greatest of holidays, Halloween. There's a chill in the air (metaphorically, if not actually), and the times call for a matching chill in reading material. What could be better than a good scary story on a chilly Halloween night?

I came to Norm Partridge's Dark Harvest with high hopes: I'm a big fan of his collection The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists, so I already knew he could write. But even having read him before, I wasn't prepared for how quickly this book sucked me in.

I'm normally not a fan of second person narrative; it tends to pull me out of the story. But for this one, it works, granting an immediacy and an intimacy necessary for the story's impact.

And what an impact. This story moves, man, and all you can do is hang on for the ride.

It's October, 1963, in Anytown, USA, and the teenage boys 16 and up are getting ready for the Halloween ritual: the Gauntlet, wherein Sawtooth Jack, a pumpkin-headed horror, attempts to make it from the field outside of town where he was born to the church in the middle of the town. It's the job of the boys to stop him (permanently), and the one who does gets a one-way ticket out of town.

We spend most of the book with 2 characters. Pete is 16 and running his first gauntlet. His family life has collapsed with the death of his mother and his father's descent into unemployment and alcoholism. He's had to grow up fast, and he wants more than this backwards little town can offer. He has to win tonight, so he can get out.

Bu things are never quite what they seem. The other character we get to know is the October Boy, and what we learn about him lifts the lid on the dark undercurrents running beneath this small, placid town.

On the one hand, Dark Harvest is a fast-moving Halloween chiller, with action that's fast and furious and genuinely scary. But on the other hand, It's also a coming of age story, and the journey of Pete and the October Boy as they discover the truth of the ritual will both chill your blood and touch your heart.

Dark Harvest is a marvel, and the perfect treat for your Halloween bag.(less)

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Aug 22, 2008 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Matt by: D_Davis

Shelves: horror, thriller, fantasy

So I picked up the text and started flipping through it and got very bored very early on. Horror stories are usually like that for me, because they are so darn predictable and so filled with pent up teenage hormones, gasoline fumes, and slimy body fluids. Maybe back when I was 16, all this horrorshow ultra-vee with a John Mellencamp soundtrack might have charged me up, but at some point after 30 I stopped worrying about how badass I am or might be and the whole adrenaline pumping thing turned in...more So I picked up the text and started flipping through it and got very bored very early on. Horror stories are usually like that for me, because they are so darn predictable and so filled with pent up teenage hormones, gasoline fumes, and slimy body fluids. Maybe back when I was 16, all this horrorshow ultra-vee with a John Mellencamp soundtrack might have charged me up, but at some point after 30 I stopped worrying about how badass I am or might be and the whole adrenaline pumping thing turned into a real yawner.

So you don't scare me.

By page 27, I've got every twist in the book figured out. I know where it's all going. Sure enough, there on page 83 you pop your first complete non-shocker. The only thing I'm even the littlest bit surprised by is how quickly you go ahead and give away the game. A normal author is going to savor his twists and turns, but I'm thinking, "Of course you know how jaded and sophisticated story readers are now days. You are giving away the first twist so that you'll distract the readers from thinking about the next one and the next." And it's pretty clever and it just might work, but you don't scare me.

See I've been thinking the whole time just stupid your puny fictional town is with its wimpy little fictional Halloween game and just how stupid the punks in your fictional little town are compared with even the inbred toughs I grew up with. And I've been thinking the whole time, "Is that all you got? Is that all they have to deal with? That ain't nothing. I've been through worse than that. This is child's play. I had more friends killed than that and no body thought it was a fun game. I've seen longer odds than that and been deeper in the corn field than that." I've already been there. You're like the Chuck Palahniuk of horror stories, trying to convince me of just how great it would be to go into the office with a broken ocular bone when it’s clear you've never actually been punched hard in the face in your whole life. Save your crap for the pampered suburbanites. So no, you ain't going to scare me with your lame pumpkin heads and spooky stories.

But somewhere around page 117 it clicked with me that you know that. I mean, you'd been screaming out that most obvious fact since page one and here I was too busy judging your story to hear you. Here I was caught up in thinking this was a horror story because that's what you told your publisher, and that's how they marketed the book, and it's what they painted on the cover, and that's what probably 99% of the people who read the book thought. And maybe that's all what 99% of the people who read the story got, and maybe they didn't see the twists coming because well they hadn't been there and no blame on them for it. They just hadn't walked in those shoes and taken those steps through that town, and maybe you did scare them gently and good for them. It's just shotgun blasts in the graveyard - good clean fun so long as it isn't pointed at anyone. It's not turning off the headlights and plowing through the turns in the wrong lane, or playing chicken with the train where the first one off the tracks has to take another drink. It's not mangled bodies, or burying whole families. It's not the real thing. It's pumpkinheads and candy, and you know that can't scare me.

Of course you do know that. You don't scare me and you don't mean to. I guessed all your twists because you were never trying to hide them from me. You knew you couldn't hide them from me, and what would have been the point of doing so anyway? I lived the real story. I know this isn't a horror story. I know that this is really a war story. I know you have to write it as a horror story because if you told a true story, most people would either not believe it or fail to understand it. When you put it down on paper, even if you write it in blood, it isn't quite the same as being there. It never can be. So you tell some lies because that's the only way to tell the story to people who don't already get it, and it's ok because they are never going to really get it any way. They can't. And lies are easier to believe anyway.

So why just four stars? Well, you know that too. Because you know you are just a chicken shit poser. You had it easy, and even if you didn't you still chickened out and wrote candy coated sugary faerie tales where the complete loner gets to be the hero and you get out with the girl and your family and it’s all over. But it isn't like that, and it doesn't come that easily. Your way is alot more fun. Yeah of course it had to burn, but as much as I would love to say that I was the one who burned it and that I saved everyone, it didn't happen that way and you know it.

Not that I wouldn’t tell the same lies when it comes my turn to sit around the digital campfire and tell the story of the October Boy. You know I’m still scared to tell the truth too.
(less)

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Oct 03, 2007 Rick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

In the mid-Nineties, Norman Partridge produced some of the finest horror fiction of the decade. But it was a bleak period for the genre, and, by the end of the decade, he veered off into crime fiction. Eventually the quantity of his output declined. This season, Partridge returns to his roots with a new horror novel, Dark Harvest.

In an unnamed Midwestern town, teenage boys participate in the Run every Halloween, essentially a hunt for a mysterious being dubbed the October Boy, an undead creature...more

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Oct 02, 2007 Floyd rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of Rated PG horror

This is another one of those books which further substantiates my belief that there are few new ideas these days, but an overabundance of compilations of old ideas being passed off as original material. For me reading this book was comparable to watching a Tarantino flick: on the surface it seems wholly original, but the deeper you dig, the more you start to recognize bits and pieces of other peoples ideas.

That being said...I really enjoyed the book. It was well written, entertaining and not as...more

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Oct 11, 2007 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: old King fans looking for a little old-King kick

A fast, fairly-furious read. I'm not sure it cared much about scaring anyone, but it takes a slew of familiar horror tropes (small-town secret rituals; Halloween & coming of age) and runs with 'em. Runs? Maybe hops into a nitro-jumped beater and roars the engine loudly, maybe a bit more loudly than you'd want, mostly showing off, engine-revving to bug the squares, before burning a bit of rubber and doing laps around the high-school parking lot. I liked it, got a quick swift kick out of it, a...more

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Jan 19, 2013 GRPLTeens Grand Rapids Public Library rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

Appeal Characteristics: Halloween, Horror, Boys, Rural Town

This is shelved in the adult section, but the main characters are sixteen. I'm not a huge horror reader, but I am trying to stretch my boundaries as a reader. I know, I'll always lack in some areas...but I'm at least trying to get acquainted with some areas I neglect. Plus, I want to make sure I'm not favoring a particular genre...or genres!

The concept of this book was executed well! The blend of "gory" horror was just the right amount...more

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Oct 18, 2012 Patrick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Picked this up randomly at the library because it was Halloween-themed.

It was an enjoyable read, short and fun and told to the audience with a casual gritty tone that was (unintentionally?) funny but kept the story moving fast along.

What's weird is that nothing much happens, and no characters rise beyond cipher-status. They have as much depth as the characters that inhabit a spooky story told around a campfire, and that's okay.

Their world is weird, like magical-realism weird. The plot of Dark H...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Malea Mandoki rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Funny story about how I got this book. I was visiting my boyfriend upstate one year and found it in a small bookshop. At the time I didn't buy it, but after I came back downstate, I tried and tried to remember its title or author, I even tried looking through book covers to find it. When I finally went back upstate, I had my boyfriend rush me to the bookstore as soon as I could, hoping that after a full year it was still there. I ran to its last location and fingered through the bookshelf. When...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Tarl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

I admit it, I have a thing for Halloween stories, especially if they involve small towns and creepy traditions. More so if they are supernatural.

Partridge did an amazing job with this book. The action flows from one moment to the next with very few moments where it slowed down. And even those had profound insight to the story and the characters. The tradition of the October Boy is an interesting idea and watching it unfold, the lies told to maintain it, was one of the best parts of this story.

T...more

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Sep 23, 2011 Christie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Peter Straub, a writer I have admired for several decades said that Norman Partridge is “probably the most exciting and original voice in horror literature to have appeared in the last decade.” Coming from the man who wrote Floating Dragon and Ghost Story, two books I read with the lights totally on, this is high praise.

An unnamed Midwestern town is cursed. Every Halloween the October Boy (or Ol’ Hacksaw Face or Sawtooth Jack) rises from the cornfields and heads to town where all the eligible te...more

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Mar 24, 2011 Todd rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-foklore-legends-mytholog, paranormal, thrillers-supernatural-alternativ, horror

Peter Straub and Stephen King have praised Norman Partridge as a “major new talent” and ‘’the most original voice” to write in the horror genre in over a decade. Dark Harvest proves worthy of this praise. This is creepy, bloody, jet fuel laced fun that unfolds with action movie pacing. The first words launch you into orbit and leave you dizzy with excitement until the final word breaks the horizon.

It’s Halloween night and Pete McCormick – just sixteen years old living with his kid sister and der...more Peter Straub and Stephen King have praised Norman Partridge as a “major new talent” and ‘’the most original voice” to write in the horror genre in over a decade. Dark Harvest proves worthy of this praise. This is creepy, bloody, jet fuel laced fun that unfolds with action movie pacing. The first words launch you into orbit and leave you dizzy with excitement until the final word breaks the horizon.

It’s Halloween night and Pete McCormick – just sixteen years old living with his kid sister and derelict alcoholic father driven to misery – is about to participate for the first time in the town’s annual event referred to simply as “The Run.” Five days before Halloween all young men ages 16-18 are locked in their rooms and given no food in preparation for the big night. From out of a dead cornfield a monster will arise called the October Boy, among other names, and with butcher knife in hand it will sneak from the field to the old stone church in the center of town. That is, unless one of the hungry adolescent males can prevent him from doing so. There is one rule – this horror must be killed before midnight. If Sawtooth Face makes it to the church life as the citizens in this town know it ends for good.

The members of the Harvest Guild, who proceed over The Run and life in Town, underestimate the intelligence and tenacity of Pete who, with the help of Kelly Haines, unveils the truth. Not even the brutal and sadistic Officer Ricks will be able to prevent what happens next.

As the bloody secrets unfold the reader may call to mind an element of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, but Dark Harvest is much more. Partridge’s prose is precise and yet lyrical. The action unfolds without descending into hyperbole or drowning in superlatives. Unlike Mr. King, Norman Partridge doesn’t overwrite his novels and reveals just enough of the underlying secrets to keep you guessing, but leaving you deliciously unsatisfied as a good mystery should. The story ends, but the mystery doesn’t. It just recesses into the darkest recesses of your subconscious.

(less)

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Dec 13, 2010 Theda Black rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It moved fast and for all that I thought it pretty original it still all comes down to that sort of 'pay the gods of the harvest or the town dies' trope. Not that there's anything wrong with that - I love a well-done trope. Some famous authors have recommended this author, but he's got a style I find a little irritating (that's probably the part others are calling brilliant). I love that he gets to the point and I love how simple and clearcut some of his descriptors are, BUT those short little p...more

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Oct 14, 2009 Aaron Polson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Norman Partridge's Dark Harvest is one of those books that, as a fledgling writer, I wish I had penned.

The prose is lean, mean, and to the point. You strap yourself into this book, and it doesn't let up for the next 176 pages. Best described as dark fantasy rather than horror (I never had a sense of dread while reading), the book is witty, intelligent, adrenaline pumping. Publisher's Weekly called it "contemporary American writing at its finest".

So I give it 4/5 stars.

What?

Only 4/5, you say?...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In a small midwestern town where corn is king there is a dark and deadly even every Halloween: from the corn fields rises a creature, known as the October Boy, made of vines with a pumpkin for a head. In its hands it holds a butcher knife. His goal is simple: reach the church in the middle of town before midnight.

In the October Boy's way lie all of the town male teens, age 16-19. They roam the street that night with one goal in mind: be the one who kills the October Boy.

For, this is not a usual...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Chad Brown rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was an excellent book and was much more than I anticipated. Having read the blurb, I was expecting a Jack-o'-lantern boy to go around killing other boys on Halloween night in some small town annual ritual. But there is so much more depth and humanity to this book that I can see why it was a Bram Stroker winner.

The external, story-telling narrator also has a unique and riveting voice, pulling the reader into the story and making them feel like they are watching the events unfold right in fr...more

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Oct 12, 2011 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, horror, standalone

Every year the people of the town lock their boys aged sixteen to nineteen in their bedrooms for five days without food then let them loose on the night of Halloween for the Run. The October Boy, a living, breathing scarecrow stuffed with candy and topped by a jack-o-lantern head, will try to make it to the church by midnight. Whatever teenage boy stops him is the winner and is allowed past the Line to escape from town. Pete is determined to win this year, but not everything about the Run is as...more

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Jan 31, 2011 David Agranoff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gothic-horror, horror-masterpiece

This book is destined to become a modern Halloween classic and should be read in the days leading up to Hallowen to get full enjoyment. A slightly darker take on the Midwestern Halloween tale than Bradbury’s Something Wicked this Way Comes but it’s in the same vein. It’s period piece that takes place in a nameless Midwestern town. Each year the Halloween becomes with a great sacrifice.

The harvest guild has to make sure or the crops they depend on might not come back after the winter. So every ye...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Melki rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: halloween, horror

Every Hallowe'en eve, a great pumpkin emerges from a less than sincere pumpkin patch. He is called "The October Boy", and you'd better drop your security blanket and RUN!
His empty, grinning head and vine-twisted body are stuffed full of candy, like a freaky, malevolent, PURE EVIL pinata. His goal is to make it to the town church by midnight, and you'd better not get in his way.

Like the denizens of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, the townsfolk do not understand why they willingly send their teenag...more

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Jun 20, 2011 Tim McGregor rated it 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes you crack open a book and it punches you right in the face. This is what Dark Harvest does. Norman Partridge's prose, written in frantic second-person narrative is the equivalent of having someone shove you up against a wall and blow your mind with their story. The sheer energy and urgency of the storytelling is rambunctious and adrenaline spiking.

The story itself riffs on one of my favorite spooky tropes; the small town with a big secret. A bizarre ritual plays out every Halloween tha...more

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Nov 05, 2010 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having heard a lot of good things about Norman Partridge, I finally got to see for myself what everyone had been saying for years about this talented horror author. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. DARK HARVEST is the ultimate Halloween story, and one that is a must-read for horror fans. Lean, tautly-written, raw and ferocious, this gem of a novel follows a town in the Midwest where a bizarre ritual occurs every Halloween. Teen-aged boys must gather weapons and attempt to stop a creature...more

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Mar 11, 2011 Non-Horror Reader Survey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: intermediate

One of the main tropes of horror fiction is Halloween. There is a lot to explore in just that one holiday that countless books and stories have already been written and there are still more to be offered. It is also a trope that, if done well, can set a writer apart from all other horror writers. Dark Harvest is that kind of book.

Starting right off in second person point-of-view, you are instantly unsettled. It is a artful choice considering the story Partridge paints with his succinct and immer...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Helen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I freely admit. I had to make a second, running start at Dark Harvest. But once I got past the idea that the evil presence holding the entire town captive was a pumpkin-headed boy with a butcher knife, the story was plenty creepy for my taste.

Every Halloween, all boys between the ages of sixteen and nineteen are set loose on the town to prevent the October Boy from getting to the church before midnight. The winner earns the one and only ticket out of town. Every Halloween, that is, until Pete M...more

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May 20, 2012 Amanda Steinhoff rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2012

I know others complained that this was a simple story, but I really liked the concept. Every year, this small town forces the boys ages 16-18 to participate in "The Run" a hunt for a murderous pumpkin man who's only goal is to get to the church before midnight. Either the boys kill him in time or he kills them. But it turns out, there's more to this ritual than the boys think, and they start to learn that maybe it's not such a great thing to kill the pumpkin man and win "The Run."

The narrator ha...more

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Jun 28, 2011 William M. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

This book is simply amazing. Partridge's writing is so incredibly fast-paced, it's hard to keep up -- and that's a good thing. The energy in his writing makes it very apparent he loves telling a good old fashioned horror tale. This book has quickly jumped to one of my all time favorite novellas. A lot of times, spending money on a limited edition hardcover (currently the only available format) is risky and can be disappointing if the material is not strong, but I can assure you, this is money we...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Bandit rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pretty good halloween tale. Should have probably waited to read it on halloween, but I found it at the library and gave it a try 6 months prematurely. I haven't read a thing but the author before, so I don't know if this is his normal writing style, but this book is told like a story someone tells you in a very matter of fact way, sort of like a campfire story. It reminded me a bit of Ketchum, but Ketchum is a far superior narrator. The story was not very original ,but good, a small town hiding...more

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Aug 23, 2012 Cynthia Eaton rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, horror

It never fails—while shopping I just HAD to stop by the book section. The cover art for Dark Harvest drew me in. The synopsis sounded promising, a nice blurb by Peter Straub on the cover, and also mention of this book winning the Bram Stoker Award sealed the deal for me.

Dark Harvest was a very engaging read. I was thoroughly entertained throughout the entire 197 pages of this story. It reminded me somewhat of a story that you could see on The Twilight Zone (TTZ is actually mentioned a couple of...more

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About Norman Partridge

Norman Partridge’s fiction includes horror, suspense, and the fantastic—“sometimes all in one story” says his friend Joe Lansdale. His compact, thrill-a-minute style has been praised by Stephen King and Peter Straub, and his fiction has received three Bram Stokers and two IHG awards.

Partridge’s career launched a series of firsts during the indie press boom of the early nineties. His first short s...more

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Johnny Halloween: Tales of the Dark Season

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Quotes from Dark Harvest

“You remember how it feels, don’t you? All that desire scorching you straight through. Feeling like you’re penned up in a small-town cage, jailed by cornstalk bars. Knowing, just knowing, that you’ll be stuck in that quiet little town forever if you don’t take a chance.” — 7 people liked it

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Dark Harvest

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