Thomas Tryon (1) (1926–1991)

Having read the author's 'Harvest Home' many years ago I was prepared for another novel of creeping horror and by and large that is what is delivered. Set in 'the old days' but with cars and movie theatres - and it eventually seems from internal clues that it is the period between the two World Wars (confirmed quite late on when two tombstones are shown with their dates that it is actually 1935) - this is the story of twin boys, one of whom is the evil twin, Holland, and the other, Niles, the good one. Except it is not that simple. For a start, there is a framing mechanism from the beginning where someone is commenting on the story- and this repeats at the beginning of each part and also at the very end - where it soon becomes clear that this person lives in an insitution, which creates a strong suspicion that this is either a mental home or a penal institution of some kind, and also of the narrator's identity.

In the first part of the story the slow narrative gradually makes clear that a series of "accidents" have befallen members of the Perry family - first, their father was killed by a falling trapdoor in the barn and then Holland nearly fell into the well while hanging his grandmother's cat. Shortly afterwards, Holland poisons the pet rat belonging to their cousin Russell - he and his parents have been living there since the father's funeral - and then another family tragedy ensues. The events are largely seen through the eyes of Niles who interacts with his brother, and we learn that their grandmother taught them a 'game' of projecting themselves onto features of nature or animals/birds to become those things. Except Niles is entirely too good at it and everything follows on from there.

There is a huge reveal at the end of part 2 which makes it clear that this is not a story of the supernatural. The trouble is, having seen lots of modern movies and read a lot of books, once this occurs the rest of the story becomes entirely predictable and, for me, a bit boring. The things that happen to other family members are horrible, but I resigned myself to various characters being bumped off in various ways and it all became rather routine. There is good characterisation and a lot of good scenesetting although the prose does drift towards the purple from time to time, but it lacked a sense of driving forward and drifted rather to the conclusion when things began to pick up a bit. So a 3-star rating for me.… (mer)