Oliver Clarke's Blog: Little Slices of Nasty, page 4

Bats by William W Johnstone #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: HUGE, SUPER INTELLIGENT, FLESH-EATING, RABID, MUTANT VAMPIRE BATS 3/5

Reviews

Bats by William W Johnstone is kind of a hoot. On the one hand it’s terrible – clichéd, aggressively and obnoxiously political, and frequently ridiculous. On the other, Johnstone is clearly having such a good time writing it that it’s hard not to get swept up in his enthusiasm.

The plot centres around a small town in southern USA that is plagued by a swam of bats. HUGE, SUPER INTELLIGENT, FLESH-EATING, RABID, MUTANT VAMPIRE BATS. That’s probably all you need to know. But Johnstone also throws in a satanic cult and a super tough ex-military hero. If this was a movie Steven Seagal would be the star. Oh, and there are killer pigs too.

None of it really makes sense, but the story rattles along at such a rate and there is so much violence that it’s generally a load of fun. What gets in the way a bit at times is Johnstone’s habit of letting his conservative politics overwhelm the story. This is a book where experts and judges are all shifty and stand in the way of common sense. Common sense being guns as the correct answer to most problems. Even worse are Johnstone’s attempts at humour which are unfunny at best and offensive at worse. There’s one long running joke about an argument between a white supremacist and a black rights activist which is utterly bizarre.

But at the end of the day this is a dumb horror novel and it’s hard to get too upset by its flaws. Taken as a b-movie creature feature it’s a success. Johnstone certainly doesn’t seem to be taking himself too seriously and I don’t think he wanted the reader to have anything other than a good time. It’s a dumb but fun thriller that’s told with so much energy and enthusiasm that I found it impossible not to enjoy.

Video ReviewBook Details

Title: Bats | Author: William W Johnstone | Publisher: Zebra | Pages: 348 | Publication date: 1st June 1993 | ISBN: 9780821741900 | Source: Purchased

Synopsis

A frightening tale about a swarm of vampire bats that have developed a taste for human blood–from bestselling author Johnstone (Watchers in the Woods). The great black cloud of terror appeared one evening in the southern U.S. –first hundreds and then thousands. No one knows how to stop the deadly shadows, but someone has to find a way.

Warnings

Content Warnings: Animal cruelty, racism, homophobia

Halloween Slaughter by Sergio Gomez #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Thoroughly enjoyable slasher, dripping with suspense and gore 4/5

ReviewsText Review

Halloween Slaughter is book that’s better than it probably has any right to be. It isn’t terribly original (in fact it deliberately derivative at times), its plot is standard fare, its characters (with one exception) two dimensional and its prose unspectacular. And yet in this book, Sergio Gomez has created something that is so hugely enjoyable that I’m already salivating at the prospect of the next entry in the series. There’s a magic here that laughs in the face of all the criticisms I made above. Things like that don’t matter when a book has that indefinable something that lifts it above the competition. Halloween Slaughter definitely has that.

This is a sequel to 2019’s Camp Slaughter, but you could enjoy it without having read the first book. I liked the original quite a bit, but I liked this one even more. It’s a stripped down slasher about a brutal killer on the run who settles in a small town and proceeds to kidnap some of the local young women who he keeps as playthings. There’s a secondary plot about a Halloween party in an abandoned house near the killer’s hideout. A party that naturally end in carnage.

What makes the book so great is the killer. Half the time he’s mild-mannered Ignacio, a gentle giant, the other half he’s Varias Caras, a hulking maniac who eats his victims wears their faces as a mask. Both sides of the character are great fun to read. Ignacio is innocent and almost sympathetic at times. Varias Caras is a badass slasher who comes across as a combination of Jason Vorhees and Leatheface.

The plot is straightforward, but moves at a really enjoyable pace. The supporting characters do their jobs (mostly getting killed) and the violence is gorily entertaining but never sadistic. Gomez does a great job of ratcheting up the suspense and then tying all the parts of his story together with an ending that was a joy to read. The sequel, Final Slaughter, can’t come soon enough.

Video ReviewBook Details

Title: Halloween Slaughter | Series: Slaughter Books #2 | Author: Sergio Gomez | Publisher: Self-published | Pages: 448 | Publication date: 11th October 2022 | ASIN: B09VH8BJGZ | Source: Kindle Unlimited

Synopsis

With the campgrounds destroyed, Ignacio has found a new place to take refuge. A new place to turn into hunting grounds. He has his eyes set on a very specific target that reminds him of his past. But hunting in a small town in PA will be different than in the isolated campgrounds.

Ignacio will have to be smarter. More patient. And wait for the right moments to strike…

The perfect time, he’ll come to find out, is on the night of ghouls and goblins and witches. On the night when everyone else is wearing masks and disguises, Ignacio will don his own mask and let the monster out like never before.

.

Warnings

Content Warnings: Kidnapping/imprisonment, cannibalism

Poking Holes by Juan Valencia #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Enormously varied and at times staggeringly disturbing debut horror collection. 4/5

ReviewsText Review

Poking Holes is an extremely strong debut collection from Mexican America author Juan Valencia. It’s horror, but maybe definitely not the kind of horror a diet of Stephen King and Blumhouse movies has prepared the world for. Instead, this is a nightmarish mix of surrealism, satire, politics, extreme gore and psychology.

The book contains nine stories, each very different from the others. There’s body horror, Lovecraftian pastiche and Black Mirror style technology-infused psychological terror. All the stories are good, but the standouts for me were the fantastically disturbing and unhinged stream of consciousness User and elegantly crafted but soul-destroying Chatty Chump, which starts of as a cute horror tale but quickly goes somewhere much darker. Both these stories are challenging in the extreme, but also brave. Unlike many writers of extreme horror who seem to lay out humanity’s worst excesses for shits and giggles, Valencia writes his horror with precision and purpose. All the stories here have something to say, even if it isn’t always something we want to hear. Racism, privilege and abuse all get examined, but never in a way that overwhelms the stories.

The variety of the tales is impressive, but what’s even better is the fact that a consistent voice and set of themes ties the stories together. At its heart this is a book about power structures and the way they’re abused. Horror lends itself perfectly to such discussions, and Juan Valencia’s love and knowledge of the genre shines through again and again. He uses relentless suspense, mystery and our fascination with the appalling to drag his readers through the stories. That makes for a book that is compellingly readable as well as meaningful.
Make no mistake, this is a VERY disturbing book at times, and should be approached with that in mind. It’s also often excellent and memorable, as much for its sensitivity as for its extreme content.

Video ReviewBook Details

Title: Poking Holes | Author: Juan Valencia | Publisher: Self-published | Pages: 209 | Publication date: 6th October 2022 | ASIN: B0BHG8GJDB | Source: Purchased

Synopsis

People are holes waiting to be filled.
People are sharp, nervous blades dancing across skin and bone.
People are hungry, desperate, empty maws waiting to be fed.
Juan Valencia’s Poking Holes is a collection of nine tales seeking to explore that emptiness, that volatile monstrosity and dangerous hunger that prevails through our encounters and self-destructions. Across bodies, across borders, across species, holes, gashes, and mouths open and let fear and anger flow free.

Warnings

Content Warning: Racism, sexual assault, child abuse

Carry on Screaming: The Rats by James Herbert

CriminOlly thinks: Brutally effective killer animal tale that shook up British horror 4/5

Title: The Rats | Author: James Herbert | Series: Rats #1 | Publisher: New English Library | Pages: 175 | Publication date: 1973 | Source: Self-purchased

Review

‘The Rats’ burst onto the UK horror scene in 1974, completely unlike anything that had come before. Many of the critics hated it, but the public loved it and the first printing sold out within weeks. Its success set Herbert on his path to become the most popular British horror writer ever and the book eventually spawned both a movie (‘Deadly Eyes’ in 1985) and a computer game. 

The book’s concept is simple: there are mutant rats and they kill people. Lots of people. What makes it effective, is how dramatically unlike previous British horror novels it is. The book immediately feels different from last month’s offering from Dennis Wheatley. Forgoing the historical settings of the Hammer Horror movies or Wheatley’s books, Herbert instead uses contemporary London as his setting. There is no slow build up to the horror either. Right from the off, the book is shockingly, unrelentingly violent, with a baby amongst the rats’ first victims. The violence is graphic and horrifying and I imagine was shocking for its day. Herbert was quite deliberate in his use of such scenes, saying in an interview years later that he “wanted to show what it was really like to have your leg chewed by a mutant creature. I was very much against the Tom and Jerry and John Wayne types of violence where no one is ever really hurt, and Indians are killed without any suggestion that they may be husbands and fathers, and perhaps keep a dog back in the tepee.”

Herbert does indeed display a real talent for writing believable, interesting characters that the reader can empathise with, even while knowing that 9 times out of 10 they will end up as rat food. Sadly the hero, Harris, is less interesting than some of the incidental characters. He’s a tough but socially conscious school teacher in the East End who ends up getting involved in the fight against the rats when one of his pupil’s is bitten. As the book progresses he becomes more and more central, and works with the authorities to defeat the menace. He’s a fairly bland protagonist, determined to do what’s right but more caught up in events than driving them. 

Far more effective is Herbert’s depiction of London. He offers a realistic portrayal of a city still recovering from the Blitz some 30 years before, with a bomb site the setting for an early scene. Whilst this is at heart a nasty bit of page turning fun, there is a political edge to it too. Herbert’s London is one of ordinary people rather than Wheatley’s adventuring gentlemen. Characters are working people or the homeless, struggling to get by in a society that doesn’t really care about them. Early on, Harris, rails against social inequality and the way the working classes are crammed into tower blocks. He makes an immediate connection between the plague of rodents and the government’s inability to run the country in a socially just way. 

It’s a book that isn’t successful in every way, Harris is uninteresting and the plot is really just an excuse to stitch the various horrific set pieces together. What makes it great is how good those set pieces are (attacks on a rube train and a school in particular) and the fact that the world the action takes place in is so recognisable. It’s unquestionably a milestone in horror fiction and well worth a read.

Synopsis

For millions of years man and rats had been natural enemies. But now for the first time – suddenly, shockingly, horribly – the balance of power had shifted and the rats began to prey on the human population.

Warnings

Content warning: Rape, infant death, alcoholism

Video ReviewWhat else happened in 1974?

(Note that this article was originally published in 2018)

The impoverished London of ‘The Rats’ seems to reflect the UK in general at that point in the 70s. The UK entered its first post-war recession at the start of the year and the Conservative government Harris despises against was indeed voted out in a general election in March, with Labour’s Harold Wilson replacing Edward Heath as prime minister.  The strikes and IRA bombings from 1973 continued with the government declaring a state of emergency in Northern Ireland.

Whilst ‘The Rats’ is undoubtedly the British horror novel of note from 1974, it’s worth noting that Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’ and Peter Benchley’s ‘Jaws’ were also published that year. 

In cinemas, horror classic ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ was released, albeit not in the UK. Like ‘The Exorcist’, which I discussed last month, it has a chequered history over here and was effectively banned until 1999 when it was finally released on video and DVD. British horror films were getting nastier too, with Pete Walker’s ‘Frightmare’ and ‘House of Whipcord’ making it into cinemas. The famous Hammer studio, once central to the UK film industry, was starting to look desperate, and released the martial arts/Dracula crossover ‘The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires’.

The Forsaken Boy by Troy Tradup #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Expertly crafted blend of coming of age story and werewolf horror is consistently entertaining 4/5

ReviewsText Review

Troy Tradup’s The Forsaken Boy is a thoroughly enjoyable blend of werewolf horror and coming of age story. It doesn’t set out to do anything radical, but it does what it does so well that really isn’t a problem. In fact, the book’s simplicity ends up being a strength – it allows author Troy Tradup to concentrate on his central character and themes and polish them until they shine.

The story focusses on Brandon, a Minnesota teenager on the cusp of adulthood. Brandon is half white, half native American and feels like he doesn’t quite belong to either culture. He’s bullied at school and struggling to navigate his way through the transition from boy to man. When Brandon encounters a werewolf, he welcomes the power that lycanthropy will give him. Both to get revenge on those who have wronged him, and to create an identity for himself.

The two strands of the book work well together, helped by the fact that Brandon is such a sympathetic lead. Even when he ends up taking actions which are impossible to condone, the reader understands why he has acted as he has. The supporting cast is similarly well written. Troy Tradup creates a small rural community that’s convincing and acts as an effective setting.

This isn’t what I would call out and out horror. The supernatural elements of the book are effectively handled, but it’s never terrifying. It is, however, frequently extremely suspenseful. A lot of that comes from the fact that you actually care about the central characters and what happens to them.

Ultimately, this feels like a very well rounded, almost classically formed, novel. It has simple themes (coming of age, friendship, powerlessness), but they suit the story perfectly. The progression of the narrative is both engaging and satisfying. If you’re after a solid, well-crafted and enjoyable horror novel, I’d recommend it.

Video ReviewBook Details

Title: The Forsaken Boy | Author: Troy Tradup | Publisher: Tough Times Publishing | Pages: 314 | Publication date: 8th October 2010 | ISBN: 9780615409146 | Source: Author

Synopsis

People have tormented Brandon his entire life. Maybe it’s his shabby clothes. Maybe it’s the bruises on his arms or the haunted look in his eyes. Or maybe it’s some essential, unexplainable difference deep inside. Not quite white, not quite Indian, and soon now…not quite human. Brandon is about to walk a dark country road and discover a hunger he never imagined. And find out he likes it.

Run. That’s all you can do now.

Warnings

Content Warning: Rape, violence against animals.

Dog Meat by Priscilla Bettis #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Disturbing, dystopian tale of a young man trying to break free from the constraints of the society he lives in. 4/5

ReviewsText Review

Dog Meat wasn’t quite what I was expecting, and somehow that made it even better. It’s a book that packs a lot into its short length, and one that I’ve reflected on since finishing it.

It’s set in an unnamed country in the 1980s, one that seems to be modelled on the People’s Republic of China. It’s an authoritarian society which is just starting to embrace some degree of private business ownership. The protagonist, Ward, is a young man who works for one such private business, a restaurant that serves dog meat. Ward’s job is to butcher the dogs on demand, deliberately inflicting pain on them in order to release hormones which make the meat taste better. The book follows Ward’s struggles with his job, and his attempts to give it up.

It’s a grim and depressing subject for a book and author Priscilla Bettis doesn’t pull any punches in her handling of the inherent violence or its impacts on the people involved. I went into Dog Meat expecting a horror story, and it’s horrific for sure, but there’s nothing supernatural or otherworldly here. Instead, it’s the everyday horror of oppression and tyranny.

What makes it bearable is Ward, he’s a rich, well drawn character, and his tale is fascinating to read. The moral questions he is grappling with are relatable, and I found myself rooting for him to find a way through them.

Bettis also weaves in a touching back story that broadens the scope of the book to cover other elements of the society she is describing. With very few pages, she manages to create a convincing and affecting world populated with memorable characters.

So, Dog Meat ended up being something other than the fun horror novella I thought I was going to be reading. It’s compelling, moving and disturbing. If you’re in the mood for something like that, I’d definitely recommend it.

Video ReviewBook Details

Title: Dog Meat | Author: Priscilla Bettis | Publisher: Potter’s Grove Press | Pages: 120 | Publication date: 8th November 2022 | ASIN: B0B8QG79DK | Source: Author

Synopsis

Kalb Ward slaughters dogs for the Colony, a closed, dystopian society where resources are tight, free speech is nonexistent, and those in power have eyes and ears everywhere. Ward desperately wants to quit his grisly job, but he knows he’ll be arrested, or worse, if he tries.

In the Colony, a citizen’s future is determined by a placement exam. Score high, and you’re set for life. Score low, and you end up living a nightmare–like Ward.

Li Ling, the love of Ward’s youth, scored high, and she’s a local celebrity now, far out of his reach. Meanwhile, his neighbor’s son is making a series of disastrous decisions as his own exam rapidly approaches.

Can Ward bridge the social divide and win back Li Ling? Can he help the neighbor’s son avoid a future as grim as his own? Can he escape the Colony’s oppressive rule and, if he’s very lucky, bring down the whole horrific system in the process?

You know what they say: Every dog has his day.

And Ward’s day is coming.

Warnings

Content Warning: Violence against animals.

Inner City Hoodlum by Donald Goines #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Blisteringly entertaining tale of crime on the streets of 1970s America 4/5

ReviewsText Review

Donald Goines was an African American author of crime fiction who published a number of novels under both his own name and the pseudonym Al C Clark in the 1970s. I’d not heard of him until very recently, but the covers of his books proudly claim that he is the best selling black writer in the US. Given that his books are around 50 years old that’s quite a feat. Inner City Hoodlum was his last book, he and his partner were found murdered in their apartment in 1974. The completed manuscript for the novel was found in his belongings and it was published posthumously.

The most obvious thing to compare the book to is the blaxsploitation movies that were popular at the same time. It has the same gritty energy, translating the lives of impoverished urban African Americans into melodramatic entertainment. The book follows a young man (Johnny Washington) who gets involved in petty crime and starts working for a local gangster. Simultaneously (and unbeknownst to Johnny) his sister Is lured into a life of prostitution.

The plot is fairly predictable but moves with the power of a freight train.  It’s fantastically gripping and while the characters are familiar, Goines presents them and their actions in an impartial way which makes for compelling reading. The people and events are believable because we know that stories like this played out with characters like these time and again in America’s cities in the 70s. That fact must have made the stories powerful to contemporary black readers, who saw their generally unrecognised existence represented (however melodramatically) in the pages of Goines’s books.

That ring of authenticity is what makes Inner City Hoodlum as good as it is. It’s rough around the edges in places, but also a great example of why popular fiction can be so important, both to its fans at the time, and to those who come later.

Video ReviewBook Details

Title: Inner City Hoodlum | Author: Donald Goines | Publisher: Holloway House | Pages: 256 | Publication date: 1st August 1992 (first published 1975) | ISBN: 9780870679995 | Source: Purchased

Synopsis

Johnny Washington, a black teenager in Los Angeles, knows the freight yard like the back of his hand. He and his pals, Josh and Buddy, hit them often, stealing for a fence. They have to. They’re the soul support of their families. But when Josh is killed by a security guard (who gets his brains scattered by Buddy with nunchaku sticks), they are forced to look for other work. They find it with the underworld kings in Elliot Davis. But when Davis recruits Johnny’s sister for his stable and later OD’s her, Johnny and Buddy come on with a vengeance.

Warnings

Content Warning: Racism, rape, drug addiction

A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: A wonderfully entertaining crime novel that mixes comedy and tragedy in 1950s New York 4/5

ReviewsText Review

A Rage in Harlem is the first novel in Chester Himes’ 9 book Harlem Cycle, a series of gritty crime novels written in the 1950s and 60s and set in Harlem. The series features some recurring characters, most notably its two black police detectives, Coffin Ed John and Grave Digger Jones.

The book concerns a Harlem resident who gets swindled out of thousands of dollars by a group of con artists, assisted by his wife. His attempts to get the money back, and the snowballing violence that results, form the basis of the story. The plot twists and turns along the way, but this is much more a book about a place and its people than any particular events. It ends up feeling as much like a social history of Harlem as it does a crime novel.

Himes is a fantastic writer, and his talent in depicting the borough and the black community that lives there is evident on every page. You get to feel the heartbeat of Harlem as the characters stride through it, with even the minor players feeling like real people.

That makes the structural racism that the black characters face even more chilling. Himes never dwells on it, but passages like the following have chilling impact.

There were pictures of three colored men wanted in Mississippi for murder. That meant they had killed a white man because killing a colored man wasn’t considered murder in Mississippi.

That’s not to say that this is a bleak book. It’s often uproariously funny, especially in the first third as the con unfolds. The blend of tragedy at the fate that is befalling the main character and comedy at how obviously he is being ripped off is absolutely delicious. The dialogue throughout is written with a deft comic touch and the action, when it happens, is brutal. That mix of so many flavours makes for a very satisfying read that’s very easy to recommend to crime fans.

Book Details

Title: A Rage in Harlem | Author: Chester Himes | Publisher: Penguin | Pages: 224 | Publication date: 25th March 2021 (first published 1957) | ISBN: 9780241521083 | Source: Purchased

Synopsis

Jackson’s woman has found him a foolproof way to make money – a technique for turning ten dollar bills into hundreds. But when the scheme somehow fails, Jackson is left broke, wanted by the police and desperately racing to get back both his money and his loving Imabelle. The first of Chester Himes’s novels to feature the hardboiled Harlem detectives ‘Coffin’ Ed Johnson and ‘Grave Digger’ Jones, A Rage in Harlem has swagger, brutal humour, lurid violence, a hearse loaded with gold and a conman dressed as a Sister of Mercy.

Warnings

Content Warning: Racism, transphobia, drug addiction

Shiver by Junji Ito #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: Marvellously eerie weirdness from the master of horror manga, Junji Ito. 4/5

ReviewsText Review

Somehow, I’ve managed to go this long without reading any Junji Ito. Given his popularity amongst horror fans that might almost feel like an act of deliberate omission. It wasn’t, just another example of the “too many books” problem. What’s probably less surprising is the fact that I absolutely loved Shiver, a collection of some of his best stories.

I tend to think of manga tales as being epically long, multi-part series that go on forever. Shiver is the opposite of that. Packed into the volumes 340-odd pages are 9 stories, each of which takes a bizarre concept and runs with it. Many of the tales are truly weird, and the fact that Ito manages to make them feel complete in a relatively few pages is very impressive. There’s great variety here too, from the haunted vinyl of Used Record, to the disgusting surrealism of Greased which features oil gushing from the faces of its characters.

It’s hard to describe exactly what it is that makes these stories so disturbingly creepy. It’s something about the blend of Ito’s wild imagination and the skill of his penmanship. The pages turn filled with simple frames that move the story along and then he hits you with an image so utterly weird that it takes your breath away. One story (Fashion Model) is essentially a simple monster tale, but it features a character whose appearance is so disquieting that I haven’t managed to shake it from my mind. There’s a nightmarish quality to the whole book that’s reminiscent of Lovecraft or some other true original.

Ito picked the stories for the collection himself, and each one is accompanied with commentary on its origins. Despite the macabre genius of his imagination, he comes across as a genuinely likeable guy in these short pieces of prose. They really add to the book and make for an interesting insight into the creative process that spawned such disturbing tales.

Video ReviewBook Details

Title: Shiver | Author: Junji Ito | Publisher: VIZ Media | Pages: 400 | Publication date: 7th October 2015 | ISBN: 9781421596938 | Source: Purchased

Synopsis

This volume includes nine of Junji Ito’s best short stories, as selected by the author himself and presented with accompanying notes and commentary. An arm peppered with tiny holes dangles from a sick girl’s window… After an idol hangs herself, balloons bearing faces appear in the sky, some even featuring your own face… An amateur film crew hires an extremely individualistic fashion model and faces a real bloody ending… An offering of nine fresh nightmares for the delight of horror fans.

1. Used Record or Second-Hand Record (from House of the Marionettes, あやつりの屋敷 Ayatsuri no Yashiki), a story about people fighting over the ownership of a record that has a singer’s singing as they died recorded on it.
2. Shiver (from Slug Girl, なめくじの少女 Namekuji no Shoujo), a story about a cursed jade stone that causes holes to open up all over a person’s body if they’re around it.
3. Fashion Model (from Souichi’s Diary of Curses, 双一の呪い日記, Sōichi no Noroi no Nikki), a story about an oddly ominous fashion model.
4. Hanging Balloons (from The Face Burglar, 顔泥棒 Kao Dorobou), a story about balloon headed dopplegangers out to hunt their counterparts the moment they go outside.
5. Marionette Mansion (from House of the Marionettes, あやつりの屋敷 Ayatsuri no Yashiki), a story about a family who rather than deciding what they do or how they live, they instead hire puppeteers to control their actions via strings from the attic of their home.
6. Painter (from Tomie), a story about a strange but beautiful woman named Tomie who wishes for an artist to accurately capture her beauty, and all the misfortune that happens as a result…
7. The Long Dream (from The Story of the Mysterious Tunnel,トンネル奇譚 Ton’neru kitan), a story about a man who claims that the length of his dreams are becoming longer and longer and about how he begins to change as his dreams extend farther and farther.
8. Honored Ancestors (from The Face Burglar, 顔泥棒 Kao Dorobou), a story about an amnesiac girl and the encounter that caused her to lose her memories and about carrying on the family line. At all costs.
9. Greased (from Voices in the Dark, 闇の声 Yami no Koe, a story about oil and grease.
10. Fashion Model: Cursed Frame [new]

Warnings

Content Warning: Excessive weirdness

Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon #BookReview

CriminOlly thinks: 1970s folk horror tale is great in some ways, jarringly dated in others. 3/5

ReviewsText Review

Harvest Home was published in 1973, the same year the classic folk horror movie The Wicker Man was released. Like that film, it features a lead character from the city travelling to a rural setting and encounters weird, folk horror type goings on.

In Harvest Home, the protagonist (and narrator) is Ned, an artist who moves with his wife and daughter from New York to the sleepy Connecticut village of Cornwall Coombe. There they find a community that feels cut off from the modern world. It’s one focussed very much on farming and in particular the harvest. Pagan rituals abound and an elderly woman, Widow Fortune, acts as a faith healer when contemporary medicine fails. As the plot progresses the traditions of the village, which initially seemed harmless, appear more and more sinister. Added to this is the grave of a young woman, distinctly separate from the rest in the churchyard. It’s something Ned becomes obsessed with and his determination to find out how the woman died plays a big part in the story.

The city vs country trope was huge in the 1970s and Harvest Home is a good example of it. Tryon does a great job of describing the village and its residents, making Cornwall Coombe both convincing and threatening. The gradual unravelling of the mystery of the separate grave is woven well into the rest of the story and serves well as a reason for Ned to keep scratching at the surface to uncover the darkness beneath.

It’s a longish book and the slow build-up of tension and weirdness is effectively handled. Often the events seem almost quaint and then Tryon throws in some alarmingly graphic violence (often against animals) to shake things up. What I liked less was Tryon’s portrayal of women, which was dated to say the least. Widow Fortune is often feels like little more than a stereotypical crone and another major female character is a cliched seductress. Throw in a pretty unpleasant rape scene (and its aftermath) and you have a book whose 50-year age is both a blessing and a curse. At its best it’s an enjoyable, atmospheric 70s rural gothic, at its worst it feels like a clumsy response to the growing feminist movement.

Video ReviewBook Details

Title: Harvest Home | Author: Thomas Tryon | Publisher: Open Road Media | Pages: 461 | Publication date: 12th May 1973 | ISBN: 9780394485287 / ASIN: B09TPY83XY | Source: Kindle Unlimited

Synopsis

After watching his asthmatic daughter suffer in the foul city air, Theodore Constantine decides to get back to the land. When he and his wife search New England for the perfect nineteenth-century home, they find no township more charming, no countryside more idyllic than the farming village of Cornwall Coombe. Here they begin a new life: simple, pure, close to nature—and ultimately more terrifying than Manhattan’s darkest alley.

When the Constantines win the friendship of the town matriarch, the mysterious Widow Fortune, they are invited to join the ancient festival of Harvest Home, a ceremony whose quaintness disguises dark intentions. In this bucolic hamlet, where bootleggers work by moonlight and all of the villagers seem to share the same last name, the past is more present than outsiders can fathom—and something far more sinister than the annual harvest is about to rise out of the earth.

Warnings

Content Warning: Rape, violence against animals.