Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon - spoiler free horror review
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- čas přidán 5. 10. 2022
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I read Harvest Home when the TV miniseries was on . Bette Davis played the crone. I was like 14 so it was 40 + years ago. But the novel's final scene has always been vivid in my memory, as is the secret of the girl with the shunned grave.
I read The Other after my mother talked about the film when it was on TV. I was not allowed to watch it so I got the book from the library and read it.
He also wrote Night of the Moonbow, which I bought but never was able to get into
A few people have recommended The Other so I’ll definitely give that one a try. Bette Davis seems a strange choice for that role!
@@CriminOllyBlog Bette Davis actually coveted the role. She gives a good performance in the miniseries adaptation, which is called 'The Dark Secret of Harvest Home', first airing in the United States on NBC.
Now you need to read The Other by Thomas Tryon. As much as I liked Harvest Home, The Other was far more entertaining, scary and shocking.
Glad to hear it. “The other” has been on my list for a while 🎉
The Other is my favorite horror novel of all time. Can't recommend it highly enough!
Sounds like I need to give that one a try!
Well now I have to read it!
I read that book years ago. The man did his research about harvest and fertility rituals. It was rather depressing and made me wish there had been an epilogue. Such as he cut her off forever and found a way to tall all the men about it and about the mass divorce and migration of all the men and the subsequent arrest of the crone while forensics got to work. Honestly i had to watch much monty python to get the taste from my brain. Granted I understand they were followers to demeter and he was warned many times not to poke about.
'Harvest Home' is one of my favorite novels (this is coming from someone who's not a big reader of fiction). While not a great work of literature, Tryon's true skills as a writer (he had formerly been a reasonably successful actor in Hollywood) shine here, with a wonderful flair for description and atmosphere, and a gift for incremental pacing, the story slowly but inexorably building to its climaxes of horror and despair.
One minor correction: The narrator's child here is a daughter rather than a son. That is one reason the village allowed the narrator's family to relocate there--new blood was desired for the demands of the secretive matriarchal cult that actually rules the village. As for the scene where the narrator tries to sexually degrade the temptress, it is important to remember that he was thereby expressing his hatred for the woman's admission to murder, and that he failed in his attempt, the woman's almost or actual supernatural power overcoming and eventually dominating him.
One interesting thing about Tryon's story is the ambiguity with which it ends. There is the possibility, never resolved, that the primordial powers that the villagers invoke and worship are actually real (in the context of the story), and are not merely ancient superstitions clung to by a credulous, isolated community. This ambiguity forces the reader to reconsider everything the narrator experienced and witnessed, and question who the actual heroes and villains of the story are.
A great read, and a true modern classic of horror.
I completely agree that the build up and atmosphere were very well handled
I've read it too, beautiful wordplay on the word "corn", as I'm a translator, I appreciate it.
Great! Glad you enjoyed it
Dark Secret of Harvest Home is one of my FAVORITE MOVIES!!!!
I've never read it but with your comment about the treatment of the female characters I decided to look up a contemporary review or two. What I found was an interview with Tryon which had this line from the female reporter, "Why do you hate women so much?" Tryon's response, "My publisher warned me I'd be asked that. I don't hate women at all, I adore them." And then he goes on to yammer away about female power and fertility rites.
Ha! That’s fascinating and very funny! I guess my sense of the book was right!
Thanks for watching and sorry it’s taken me a while to reply!
Great review! Love hearing about this story and what may have been going on in the world when it was being written 🤗
Thanks Kris, I think that kind of context is really important in reviews.
Oh, interesting. I haven't read Harvest Home for years and don't remember that particular bent at all. Must check it out again now that I'm more socially aware! Unrelated: OMG, John Waters just signed on to direct a film version of Liarmouth! I can only imagine some of the effects in that film ...
OMG that will be amazing!
We kids first heard of Tomas Tryon as an actor in the Walt Disney series from Frontierland, TEXAS JOHN SLAUGHTER. He appeared in several movies after that and then sort of dropped out of sight until he published the novel, THE OTHER. It was quite a surprise to know our childhood hero, Texas John Slaughter was now a novelist.
Yeah I saw that he'd been an actor when I was reading up on the book - that does seem quite a change.
I was not expecting the Gaunt’s Ghosts to make an appearance on this channel 😮
I'm kind of relieved that The Saint has four novels inside. Otherwise, that'd be one huge chunker of a story!
Ha! Yes it is a doorstop
I've been reading a recommendation from one of your other posts, Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. I was not familiar with this author, but I'm enjoying it very much and plan to read more by him. I was thinking that Thomas Tyron and also John Saul resemble this type of horror, be it more old-fashioned.
That's great! I've not read Hex yet myself but planning to next month!
I just found a first edition copy of this in the used book store, so I'm excited to hear your opinion.
Oh that's very cool!
I didn’t get to this one last month due to my slump but I definitely want to read it. I liked The Other a lot so have been wanting to read more by Tryon.
A lot of people have been recommending The Other - going to give it a go soon!
T.E.D Klein’s The Ceremonies is well worth a read set in rural New Jersey
I definitely need to read that. I had a copy years ago but never got to it
That was a great book. Enjoyable enough to be a quick read. I’m planning to read his THE OTHER this month.
Incidentally, both of those books were turned into movies (or made-for-TV movies). 🥃🙃
I think I’m definitely going to have to read The Other as it sounds like it’s the best of his novels.
Thanks for watching and sorry it’s taken me a while to reply!
While I enjoyed reading the book, I agree with you. Half way through it I predicted what the festival was about and I remember thinking I really hope it will be different and more of a twist than that but nope it was what I thought and was actually a let down for me. Definitely seemed like a man vs woman thing.
Yeah it all felt both too much and too obvious to me. Which is a shame as I liked a lot of the rest to the book.
Thanks for watching and sorry it’s taken me a while to reply!
Enjoyed!!!😊
Thank you!
I really enjoyed this novel when I read it a few years ago. Like you I had put it off for decades. It’s not fresh in my mind, but the battle between men and women is kind of baked into the cake for this story.
Yeah it’s definitely a big part of it.
Another Bibliophile Reads...Years after reading this unusual horror novel, I came to think Tryon got some of the ingenious material for his Cornwall Coombe world from James George Frazer's "The Golden Bough".
@@fukmbabe2786 I’ve never read The Golden Bough, but from what I have heard, the are gold mines of stories to be unearthed.
@@fukmbabe2786 Absolutely, the motif of the dying and resurrected god, embodied by the community's lord or king, is central to Tryon's tale.
I came across Harvest Home (which is titled Der Kult [The Cult] here in Germany) in my mid/late teen years after I read somewhere (I believe Stephen King mentioned in Dance Macabre) that it was made into a, seemingly quite bad, TV movie and I'm all about horror film related books. Only read it once and remember it being a bit too slow for me and the ending not really satisfactory. But there is one story surrounding that book, I still find hilarious to this day (most likely because my older sister does NOT): I ordered it at a local bookstore close to our house but went sick and asked my sister to fetch it for me. She came back furious about what I had made her pick up, because, unaware to me, the publisher put a promotional tagline / subtitle very prominent on the front cover: The Secret Love Rituals of the Women of Cornwall Coombe!
😂😂😂 that is funny! And the title kind of suits it perfectly 😂😂😂
Thanks for watching and sorry it’s taken me a while to reply!
Great review - really enjoyed your insight, so much so that I have zero desire to read it. 🙂Thanks Olly. It’s simply not my cuppa tea.
If "Harvest Home is not for you, I recommend "The World According To Garp" by John Irving as your next read. I think you'll love it.
Thanks MJ. We can’t all want to read every book 😊
@@CriminOllyBlog 😊
@@CriminOllyBlog ...Tom Tryon wrote a book I think you'd prefer called "Lady"...
Harvest Home had a war with Stepford.
Ha - yes indeed
Along the titles behind u thread, have u talked about Chester Himes?
I haven't really, but I'm reading A Rage in Harlem this month
Give The Santaroga Barrier (Frank Herbert) a try. I think he kick started the 'weird/strange community' genre.
Thanks - I'll check that out
Fascinating review. Do you think gender politics have used horror as a platform, especially in the ways women have been used negatively by films and books written/made by men?
I’m not sure I’d say there was anything as calculated as that. I think popular literature tends to reflect the general mood of the times it’s created in.
@@CriminOllyBlog yeah I agree - I was just wondering if you thinking on those lines….
The Other by the same author is even better.
A few people have said that, definitely going to give it a try
I've had this on my TBR for years. I even have a video on my channel where I read the beginning. Although your vid is titled "Spoiler Free" I had to stop watching it because you were giving away too many plot details.
I'll move the book up my TBR, to be read after the current novel I'm reading (along with many self-help books). At least I'm prepared for the gruesome horror!
Sorry if I gave away too much! I try to give away as little as possible in reviews but it can be hard to get the balance just right sometimes
A woke review.... grrreeat :(
Glad you approve!
I don't know if you have read it, but I just purchased Ceremonies, by TED Klein, set in upstate NY, and written in 1984, which I started reading in 88, but never finished, having unfortunately lost the book. A Fantasy pastoral horror, by an author I first became aware of in an early 80s American short story collection, Dark Forces, which was where The Mist by Stephen King was first published. Once I've read Ceremonies, I'll feed you back my impressions.
Weirdly I used to have a a copy of The Ceremonies which I started reading but did not finish in about 1988!
Klein is definitely someone I am keen to read.