Read as part S of the “Along the Library
Shelf” reading journey
Chosen because
An attractive cover, as ever, drew my eye: a
lonely barn in a field of corn below a high white sky dotted with menacing black
birds. The blurb was promising with comments from Stephen King and The
Guardian, and the first couple of pages left me wanting to know more. The
horror genre is not my usual choice, but that is what the A to Z journey is all
about – variation from the norm.
The Review
Lee Harwell is a writer in late middle age
in need of literary inspiration. A chance encounter brings back to mind a
long-buried episode of his youth and soon an irrepressible desire forms to dig
it up and examine it.
It was buried for a good reason. His high
school friends (one now his wife) took part in a psychic experience, led by the
guru-like Spencer Mallon, which ended in death, disappearance and damage to the
survivors, who then clammed up and spread far and wide. Harwell himself had
chosen not to get involved but now needs to know what actually happened and
sets about rounding up the gang and persuading them to talk.
Two strands emerge and intertwine. In the
normal world the old friends re-engage and spend time joining the dots from
their shared adolescence to their current separate lives. In doing so they each
recall and describe the traumatic experience of the para-normal world called
forth by Spencer Mallon. Was the spirit world they revealed real or imagined?
The writing is good and maintains interest,
although concentration is required as the story flits between now and then,
character and character, and first and third person narration (often in the
same paragraph). The depictions of horror are vivid and powerful but to me were
too unworldly to produce fear or dread.
Read another?
I’ve nothing against the (award winning)
author but, as this book has not drawn me into the horror genre, probably not.
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