2 / 5 Stars
Harvest Home' came out in hardback in 1973, with a paperback edition (415 pp.) issued by Fawcett Crest in June, 1974. Both editions feature cover art by Paul Bacon.
I remember reading this book way back in the early 70s, as a ‘Book of the Month’ club hardbound edition 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, 50 years later I decided to take a second look at the novel.
Thomas Tryon was one of a triumvirate of authors, such as Ira Levin (‘Rosemary’s Baby’) and William Peter Blatty (‘The Exorcist’), who were on the leading edge of the horror fiction movement back in the late 60s – early 70s. 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 defined the Paperbacks from Hell era, 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. The same year that ‘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 rather mannered and sedate.
Readers willing to indulge in a slow-paced, character-driven novel set in the early 1970s will want to give ‘Home’ a try. But anyone expecting an intense dose of horror will need to look elsewhere.
You probably remember the film? Bette Davis played the matriarch.....it was actually pretty scary, as I recall.
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