The Halloween Man [Mass Market Paperback]

Douglas Clegg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998

The Halloween Man walks when the screaming begins, and only Stony Crawford holds the key to the power of the chilling mystery of Stonehaven, and to the power of the unspeakable creature trapped within a summer mansion.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Horror fiction need not necessarily have original ideas--most of its ideas are as old as the hills--but it's a treat when a writer like Douglas Clegg comes along, with the ability to look at the old ideas in new ways. In The Children's Hour Clegg reinvented the vampire legend. In The Halloween Man Clegg reinvents devil worship.

The plot of this novel is so complex and multifaceted, it's not easy to summarize, but it boils down to two narratives about two points in time. The protagonist, Stony Crawford, is a 15-year-old man (not a boy) in love with a dark-haired beauty named Lourdes Maria. Their surprisingly deep romance unfolds against the backdrop of a peculiar small town on the rugged coast of Connecticut. After a 12-year absence, Stony returns to this town bringing with him a young boy whom he kidnapped from a religious compound in Texas. Thanks to Clegg's skillful interlacing of the two narratives, when the life of 15-year-old Stony climaxes, so does that of 27-year-old Stony. The crux of both stories is a powerful being of "divine evil" and "Azriel Light"--perhaps a demon, perhaps simply a creature like any other.

Clegg's characters are well realized and fascinating, and the story is richly steeped in history. The Halloween Man is a stunning horror novel, written with a degree of conviction that is rare these days. --Fiona Webster

Review

"Clegg gets high marks on the terror scale..."(The Daily News (New York)) -- This is a required answer. Please enter something.

"Douglas Clegg is one of horror's most captivating voices..." -- BookLovers

"Every bit as good as the best works of Stephen King, Peter Straub, or Dan Simmons..." -- Hellnotes: The Newsletter for the Horror Professional

"Packed with vivid imagery; a broadly-scoped but fast-paced plot; powerful, evocative writing; superb characterizations; and facile intelligence, The Halloween Man is more than its blurbage can ever convey..." -- DarkEcho

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books; First Edition edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843944390
• ISBN-13: 978-0843944396
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #969,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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I'm a novelist living on the New England coast. My first novel, Goat Dance, came out in 1989, and since then, more than 20 of my novels have been published.

I'd recommend: Neverland, Isis, Afterlife, The Words, Purity, or The Priest of Blood (and the entire vampire trilogy, The Vampyricon) if you're new to my fiction.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Horror Harvest, July 8, 2000

By 

C. Fletcher (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Halloween Man (Mass Market Paperback)

This is my third Douglas Clegg book. I've also read his short story collection, The Nightmare Chronicles, and his novel, You Come When I Call You. I read all three books back-to-back this summer, and just wasn't able to put any of them down.

The Halloween Man is the story of Stony Crawford, a boy on the verge of manhood who, in the autumn of his fifteenth year, learns some troubling things about his birth, and must decide how to move forward in the light of this knowledge. There are many similarities between this novel and You Come When I Call You. They both feature main characters on the cusp of adulthood who must battle demonic forces in a small town (in both cases the town is ultimately wiped out Roanoke Colony-style by the evil force in question).

Clegg probably does a better job in You Come When I Call You of building a strong propelling narrative that leaves the reader with no other choice than to keep turning pages. The Halloween Man is still very reader-friendly, but it's a little bit smaller and quieter of a novel (a little bit, anyway). The focus here is more on atmosphere and history. Clegg brings out more of the local color of the small seacoast New England town than he did for the desert town of You Come When I Call You. There's something very Lovecraftian about the briny surroundings that doesn't bode well for the local inhabitants.

In both novels, Clegg is concerned with religion and in teasing out what he believes, and what his characters believe about the origins of Biblical stories. I found this very fascinating, especially in The Halloween Man, in which Clegg does a more complete job of teasing out those beliefs.

If you've read and enjoyed any of Clegg's other writing, you should certainly pick up The Halloween Man. If you haven't read anything by Clegg and are thinking about it, I would either start with his short story collection, The Nightmare Chronicles, or this novel. You Come When I Call You is more of a powerhouse, but The Halloween Man displays more range and more of Clegg's facets as a writer.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Other Clegg novels, January 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Halloween Man (Mass Market Paperback)

I had never heard of Douglas Clegg until Halloween Man and Nightmare Chronicles. I started these books for fun but found them to be moving, serious, funny in parts, but over all pretty great books to read.

Now my big problem is tracking down his books Goat Dance, Never Land and Childrens Hour.

Halloween Man is one of those novels where you can't recommend it to people who like slasher stories, even though there's a little slashing. You can't recommend it to people who like serious fiction because they all seem to believe that horror stories can't be serious.

So who do I recommend this to? People who like Straub, Koontz, King, Little, and maybe Barker. This is a fascinating story, but not for people who don't demand a lot from their horror fiction. Yet it's also very entertaining.

I can't wait to read Clegg's upcoming magnum opus, You Come When I Call You. I have no idea what it's about, but if it's anything like Halloween Man, it will be amazing reading.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coulnd't Put This One Down!, November 21, 1999

By 

Will - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Halloween Man (Mass Market Paperback)

I've been reading horror novels since the age of seven. I'm now 30, and the only author that I've enjoyed more than Clegg is Stephen King. HALLOWEEN MAN is a definite must have for every horror fan's bookshelf.