Thomas Tryon - Harvest Home

[sean]

I picked this one up on Amazon last week (as well as 'The Other' by the same author) 'cos I remembered it being pretty good from when I first encountered it. Well chuffed that it turned out to be the same edition with the dodgy skeleton! Glad to say, it has stood the test of time fairly well.

First published 1973
(Coronet 1975)


BLURB:

'The slow shift from pastoral bliss to the chilling horror of ritual murder is beautifully done. I found it compelling.'
- The Daily Telegraph

'Evokes all sorts of primitive memories and instincts. You will be scared stiff - but fascinated'
- The Daily Express

Ned and Beth Constantine came across the hamlet of Cornwall Coombe almost by mistake - and thought it the place they had been looking for all the time. Quite and sedate, it appeared to offer everything they wanted. But what followed after their adoption of Cornwall Coombe turned their dream into the most horrific nightmare...

'Harvest Home is superbly haunting'
- Chicago Tribune


Think 'The Wicker Man' meets 'The Stepford Wives' and you're pretty much in the general area of 'Harvest Home'. Family moves from the big nasty city to small rural village and begin the long process of being accepted by the locals. As many of the more rustic characters frequently (too frequently!) say, they all stick to the old ways, because the old ways are the best. There is a young character who thinks tractors are a good thing, but his behaviour is frowned upon by all. There's an old widow who acts as the matriarch and also deals in old style herbal remedies and acts as the local midwife. There is a small child who is said to be able to predict the future. Her mother is the local post-mistress who doubles as the village temptress in her spare time. You get the picture.

There are a whole bunch of rituals and events that have to be observed, all related to the corn and fertility and Mother Earth, all of which become more and more sinister as the story progresses. The local peddler goes missing, and it transpires that he has had his tongue removed and his mouth sewn up because he had seen too much. During the cremonial burning of the scarecrows just before harvest time, one of the scarecrows is actually a person. Ouch.

Then there is the whole business of the Harvest Lord and the Corn Maiden, the ceremony witnessed at the climax of the book by Ned, hiding in a hollow tree. Can't really say much about it without dropping huge spoilers, but it is the only possible ending to the book. The final chapter is great.

A good old fashioned horror novel, well worth a few pennies if you see a copy. I'm looking forward to reading 'The Other' sometime soon.

[franklinmarsh]

Nice one, Sean - were both of these filmed?

[sean]

Yeah, 'The Other' was filmed in 1972 apparently, and (according to imdb) 'Harvest Home' was turned into a mini-series in 1978, under the title 'The Dark Secret of Harvest Home'. I'm afraid I've seen neither of them.

The trailer for 'The Other' is on good ole Youtube... it looks pretty interesting!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQmzt9MIKY

[carolinec]

Ooo, yes. I remember reading both "Harvest Home" and "The Other" ages ago and really enjoying both of them. I then started to look out for other books by Tom Tryon and only found one other - called "Lady" I think. I read it and was really disappointed as it wasn't horror - I just assumed it would be another horror novel! It was a kind of mystery thing with a bit of a social commentary about the plight of black Americans as second-class citizens. Do you know if Tryon wrote anyting else? I believe he was an actor famous for cowboy films originally.

I did see the film version of "Harvest Home" and thought it was OK but not as good as the book. But I didn't know "The Other" had been filmed. Not sure how well that would translate to film either as there's a lot of what you might call "psychological" stuff in the book. I remember one particularly nasty scene from the book which has stuck in my mind - the bit where he pickles the baby in a jar. Horrible!

[sean]

He wrote several historical novels, but 'The Other' and 'Harvest Home' appear to be his only out and out horror works.

Saying that there is a 1989 novel that sounds like it could be borderline horror, 'Night of the Moonbow'. The Fantastic Fiction site has this to say about it:

The camp motto was "Glad men from happy boys," but the new camper would bring a chilling secret to this final season..a season when an orderly society of boys would transform itself into something primitive and dangerous..when the evil already in the world would be made flesh.

[andydecker]

I just saw "The Other" a couple of weeks ago for the first time. It has become dated in some aspects, especially its "surprise twist" which has become a stupid cliche - which of course is not his fault.

But on the whole it was a creepy movie, and I guess at it´s time it was very successful in what it did.

I thought it kind of interesting that he was an actor doing a lot of te westerns before he became a successful writer, even if he didn´t wrote that much.

[sean]

Might as well put this one here as well...

The Other
First published 1971
(Coronet 1980)


BLURB:

It's the summer of 1935 and, in a sleepy New England town, people are talking about the epidemic of accidents up at the Perry's house. Vining and Russell Perry, man and boy, mysteriously killed. Another boy drowned in a skating tragedy. Vining's widow fallen downstairs... Accidents?

Vining's sons are an odd pair, mocking withdrawn Holland and nice, generous Niles. Involved in a telepathy game with theri Russian grandmother. A game that might be getting horribly out of hand...

THE OTHER is a masterly exercise in brooding terror, a subtle study in tortured family life. A triumph for Tom Tryon. And a chilling experience for the reader.


First off, I can see what Andy means about the twist, but, when it appeared around 2/3rds of the way through the book I still went 'fucking hell!' really loudly. It has indeed been somewhat done to death since, but it is carried of quite nicely here.

The Perry family are worthy of any Shirley Jackson novel, although the style of the two authors is worlds apart. The father has recently been killed in an accident in the cellar, the irritating cousin who is staying with them jumps from a hayloft failing to see the upturned pitchfork below. Then there was the incident when Holland tried to hang his grandmothers cat in the well. And the woman scared to death by a rat. And can it be that nice Niles really pushed his own mother down the stairs?

Then their sister's new baby goes missing, and Ada, the grandmother, knows that now she has no choice but to act.

Tricky book to say much about 'cos the spoiler potential is very high indeed, but I can say that it is a bloody good read, well worth picking up. I must admit, I'd like to see the film version now.

[dem bones]

Thomas Tryon - Harvest Home (Coronet, 1975; Hodder & Stoughton, 1974)

1972. Ned Constantine, wife Beth and difficult teenage daughter Kate quit the New York rat race for a fresh start in an Eighteenth century cottage and the isolated, idyllic New England hamlet of Cornwall Coombe.

Ned gets stuck into his artwork: he's going through a 'sketching the local gravestones' phase. The community, initially stand-offish, become friendlier as their annual festival, the Agnes Fair, approaches, and Widow Fortune, the village matriarch, discreetly sees to it that they have all the help they need in settling in.

The day of the fair. Kate is going through one of her impossible phases. Corwell Coombe having only the most rudimentary school, her parents have enrolled her at Greenfarms, five miles away, and she's been picking up stories about the "yokels" from her classmates. Missy Penrose has witchy powers on account of her being born outside wedlock. She used them to burn down Fred Minerva farm. "When the moon's full, they go dancing in the fields and do crazy things." Another popular local superstitions would have it that the woods are haunted.

Professor Dodd, who handles the deal on behalf of the reclusive owner, kind of hinted at this when he shared a friendly tip off. The native corn farmers, he assures, are decent folk with a high regard for tradition: "if it was good enough for my grandpa then it sure is good enough for me." Having deliberately isolated themselves from the outside world, their ways are not those of other people and will take getting used to. Are the Constantine's ready to adjust? Despite his pally demeanour, the way Dodd asks this might almost be taken as a threat, but that can't be right, can it?

Let's hope so. It won't be much of a horror novel otherwise.

To be continued ...

[killercrab]

I have a poor dvdr copy of the American tv version that I've not waded through yet to be honest - hoping for a better copy to turn up. I hear the book's a classic though.

KC

[andydecker]

I know I read this and I remember being impressed. But this is it. I don´t rememeber any plot basics except it being slow and the ending somehow being - 35 years ago - a surprise and getting recycled by Stephen King and everybody else. But I couldn´t say if it was a Scooby Doo ending or something supernatural.

Planed to re-read it for ages, so looking forward to your review

[Jojo Lapin X]

Sept 8, 2011 12:36:37 GMT andydecker said:

I know I read this and I remember being impressed. But this is it. I don´t rememeber any plot basics except it being slow and the ending somehow being - 35 years ago - a surprise and getting recycled by Stephen King and everybody else.

I remember feeling that T E D Klein's THE CEREMONIES was heavily indebted to HARVEST HOME. But I do not remember any particulars of either one.

[jamesdoig]

Sept 8, 2011 17:02:09 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

I remember feeling that T E D Klein's THE CEREMONIES was heavily indebted to HARVEST HOME. But I do not remember any particulars of either one.

Probably the rural atmosphere and sinister rites that are quite well done in both.

[dem bones]

"The red hands of Missy Penrose printed on his cheeks; from sheep's entrails, like an ancient seeress the half-wit child had chosen the booy. Her pale face staring in triumph at Worthy's paler one; plainly he had not wished it. Children and sheep's blood and oracular visions; the startling ways of Cornwall Coombe."

By close of the Agnes fair and part one of the novel, Ned has realised that what the Professor chose to let on about the community has more than a grain of truth to it. As the name suggests, the original settlers came over from Cornwall with a full catalogue of enshrined superstitions and rituals, these supplemented with many of their own invention as the community grew. Ned is already getting to admire his neighbours for their work ethic and quiet dignity, though he still finds it difficult to make sense of their conversations. Who was the never-to-be-spoken-of Gracie Evergreen, her bones buried in a lonely grave on unconsecrated ground as punishment for "going bad"? What's the deal with the belligerent Old Man Soakes and his clan, pariahs on account of some business going back hundreds of years? Did the amiable peddlar Jack Stump really see a ghost in the wood on the eve of the fair, and, in the unlikely event he did, whose was it? And why do his neighbours put such store in the visions of Missy Penrose who Ned privately thinks of as the village idiot in a community not short of contenders?

The fair is not without incident. Young James Hooke, a pleasant, capable lad reputedly hung like a stallion, triumphs in every trial of strength bar pole-skimming. Kate, watching in admiration, suffers one of her turns but luckily the widow is on hand with her equivalent of the magic sponge to bring her round with no harm done, thereby succeeding where medical science has failed. Ned actually enjoys himself after a fashion - until he chances upon Missy in a barn, delving around in the guts of a slaughtered pig. Mumbling gibberish, the girl in the blood-stained smock points at him and screams ....

must say, i'm loving it in a very Bernard Taylor's The Moorstone Sickness way so far.

[cauldronbrewer]

Jul 24, 2008 7:53:39 GMT @sean said:

First off, I can see what Andy means about the twist, but, when it appeared around 2/3rds of the way through the book I still went 'fucking hell!' really loudly. It has indeed been somewhat done to death since, but it is carried of quite nicely here.

The Perry family are worthy of any Shirley Jackson novel, although the style of the two authors is worlds apart. The father has recently been killed in an accident in the cellar, the irritating cousin who is staying with them jumps from a hayloft failing to see the upturned pitchfork below. Then there was the incident when Holland tried to hang his grandmothers cat in the well. And the woman scared to death by a rat. And can it be that nice Niles really pushed his own mother down the stairs?

Then their sister's new baby goes missing, and Ada, the grandmother, knows that now she has no choice but to act.

Tricky book to say much about 'cos the spoiler potential is very high indeed, but I can say that it is a bloody good read, well worth picking up. I must admit, I'd like to see the film version now.

I finished The Other a few days ago. It's a slow read; it took me a week's worth of evenings to finish due to the book's deliberate pacing. Though I didn't like it quite as much as Harvest Home, I was still impressed by it. If anything, The Other is even darker; there was one scene toward the end--echoing an earlier, seemingly tangential scene--that profoundly disturbed me.

I think Sean is spot-on in terms of the parallel to Shirley Jackson's brand of psychological horror. I was particularly reminded of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, my all-time favorite novel. Both books focus on the remnants of once-grand, now misfortune-plagued families that formerly lorded over small New England towns. Each features a sibling pair (Niles and Holland in The Other; Constance and Merricat in Castle) where one is "nice," the other is "strange," and both are somewhat crazy (with each pair, there's also the mystery of which sibling is truly the crazier one). Each book also involves a twist/mystery at the two-thirds point that I saw coming by the end of the second chapter (not because I'm psychic, but because Tryon's has been spoiled by subsequent examples of the same device and Jackson's is heavily foreshadowed by what we learn about a particular character). In neither case did foreseeing the "surprise" ruin the story for me. One could even argue that the endings of the two books are conceptually similar to one another even if they're different in the details.

It's a pity Tryon didn't write more books in the genre.