Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Harvest Home
Book Review: Some Secrets Should Be Left Undiscovered
Summary: 4 Stars
Harvest Home was one of the first "horror" novels I read while in high school and find that it is still one of the best horror/suspense novels from the seventies. After a recent re-read, I found Thomas Tryon's debut novel to be as relevant and powerful as it was when I first picked it up thirty years ago.
The story weaves a classic tale of a seemingly sleepy, idyllic, small town New England hamlet, Cornwall Coombe, where a city-dwelling family, Ned and Beth Constantine moves to from NYC with their teen daughter, Kate, in search of a simpler life. Ned and family settle contently into small-town life with a determination to fit in.
Before long, Ned comes to the realization that the town and it's homespun residents are not at all what they appear to be. He learns that the town's history centers around its ancient Cornish rituals which involves the harvesting of the corn crops. Ned embarks on a quest to discover the mysteries of the harvest and discovers that some secrets should never be found out.
Mr. Tryon novel is a well-written chiller inhabited by believable and well-constructed characters. The descriptive imagery, characters, and action are all wonderfully depicted. I felt as though I was right in the middle of the story watching the events unfold. Harvest Home will make a nice addition to my e-reader.
Book Review: a great find
Summary: 5 Stars
Had been looking for this all summer. Found it here for a great price! Thanks so much to the seller who made it all good!Book Review: probably too sedate and slow-moving to appeal to modern readers
Summary: 2 Stars
I remember reading this book way back in the early 70s, one of those `Book of the Month' club editions with the untrimmed page edges and cheaper binding (`special book club edition' indicated in small italic font on the inside flap of the dust jacket). In a fit of nostalgia I decided to take a second look at it more than 30 years later.
Thomas Tryon was one of a triumvirate of authors successfully producing horror novels back in the late 60s - early 70s, along with Ira Levin (`Rosemary's Baby') and William Peter Blatty (`The Exorcist'). Tryon's previous novel `The Other' (1971) was made into a feature film in 1972, so he was riding considerable momentum when `Home' was issued in 1973.
`Home' takes place in 1972 in the bucolic New England town of Cornwall Coombe. Ned Constantine, the first-person narrator, his wife Beth, and daughter Kate, have just moved to the village from New York City.
Cornwall Coombe has plenty of Yankee charm, a hint of mystery, and a large cast of eccentric characters: there is a kindly Widder Woman with a `Foxfire' homeliness about her; an older married couple in the house next door, who are full of facts and observations about life in the village; a scraggly but lovable peddler; Tamar, the Town Hussy; and her odd little daughter, who is gifted with prophetic and disturbing visions.
Ned discovers that much of the social and economic life of the village revolves around adherence to pastoral rituals and beliefs that are seemingly drawn from medieval England, rather than 20th century America. While at first these beliefs seem quaint and harmless to Ned and his family, he gradually realizes that there is a dark and dangerous undertone to Cornwall Coombe's customs. There is an encounter with what seems to be a `ghost' and an eerie tableaux in the deep woods. Soon Ned is forced to a fateful decision: does he step over the line into being a participant, or does he reject the Old Ways and in so doing becomes the interloper who must be eliminated ?
The main drawback to `Harvest Home' is its leisurely pacing, so leisurely, in fact, that I suspect anyone under the age of 40 - raised on the more graphic horror that has occupied pop culture since the advent of Stephen King in the mid 70s and George Romero's seminal `Dawn of the Dead' in 1979 - will find it boring. The Portents of Doom that Tryon sprinkles through the early pages of the book are too thin a gruel to nourish modern readers more used to violence and action within the first 50 pages of their novels. When the horror tones of the story do finally kick in, they are relatively weak and rely more on subtlety and atmosphere than overt gore.
In some ways I suspect the languid tenor of `Home' led to Tryon's somewhat premature eclipse in the world of horror fiction. Just a year after `Home' appeared on store shelves, Stephen King would publish `Carrie', and then in 1975 his own Haunted Village novel `Salems Lot' which is superior to Tryon's works. In the wake of the King juggernaut, the horror tales of Tryon, Blatty, and Levin came across as too mannered and sedate.
Readers willing to indulge in a slow-paced, but well-written, horror novel set in the early 70s will want to give `Home' a try. But anyone looking for an intense dose of thrills and chills will need to look elsewhere.
More Harvest Home reviews:
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