Harbor [Hardcover]

John Ajvide Lindqvist (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 11, 2011

John Ajvide Lindqvist has taken the horror world by storm. His first novel, Let the Right One In, has been made into critically acclaimed films in both Sweden and in the U.S (as Let Me In). His second novel, Handling the Undead, is beloved by horror lovers everywhere. Now, with Harbor, a stunning and chilling masterpiece, Lindqvist firmly cements his place as the heir apparent to Stephen King.

One ordinary winter afternoon on a snowy island, Anders and Cecilia take their six-year-old daughter Maja across the ice to visit the lighthouse in the middle of the frozen channel. While they are exploring the lighthouse, Maja disappears – either into thin air or under thin ice -- leaving not even a footprint in the snow.

Two years later, Anders, a broken man, moves back to his family’s abandoned home on the island. He soon realizes that Maja's disappearance is only one of many strange occurrences, and that his fellow islanders, including his own grandmother, know a lot more than they’re telling. As he digs deeper, Anders begins to unearth a dark and deadly secret at the heart of this small, seemingly placid town.

As he did with Let the Right One In and Handling the Undead, John Ajvide Lindqvist serves up a blockbuster cocktail of high-tension suspense in a narrative that barely pauses for breath.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Like Stephen King, Lindqvist makes deft use of contemporary pop culture.... Like King, Lindqvist is a master at evoking the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small, self-contained community whose denizens are as cursed by their own history as by the uncanny, terrifying events of the present."

--The Washington Post

 

"John Ajvide Lindqvist is rightly seen as one of the most exciting writers working in the horror genre at the moment – a rival, indeed, to Stephen King."

--The Scotsman

 

"A spooky pleasure, expertly told."

--Kirkus Reviews

 

"Enthralling dark fantasy."

--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST is the author of Handling the Undead and international sensation Let the Right One In, which has been made into critically acclaimed films in both Sweden and the United States (as Let Me In). The Swedish film based on the book, for which Lindqvist wrote the screenplay, won top honors at the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as at film festivals around the globe. Of the American film, Stephen King commented, "Let Me In is a genre-busting triumph. Not just a horror film, but the best American horror film in the last twenty years...Rush to it now. You can thank me later."

Lindqvist became an author after careers as a magician and as a stand-up comic. He has also written for television. His books are published in twenty-nine countries; he lives in Sweden.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; Reprint edition (October 11, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312680279
• ISBN-13: 978-0312680275
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #255,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice Dose of Atmospheric Horror *Spoiler Free* September 12, 2011

By R. C. Bowman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I didn't know what to expect when I picked up "Harbor." I didn't enjoy "Let the Right One In," but I liked the premise here. To me, it sounded like a cross between the first half of "Shutter Island" and Stephen King's "Storm of the Century." (It wasn't, not really.) So I started...

And finished about twelve hours later.

"Harbor" is a highly atmospheric, original horror novel that has done something remarkable: even after you realize what the monster, the terror of the novel, is (this occurs about halfway through) I didn't think, "oh, that's what it is" or "oh, that's ridiculous" or "oh, the mystery's out, why am I still reading?"

That delightful anxiety produced by good horror ratcheted up another notch or two, and I thought, "What on earth are they supposed to do NOW?!?!"

Exactly what they do carries beautifully through the rest of the book. Not once did I feel bored, or let down by the object of horror here. Don't get me wrong, it had the potential to be so incredibly, ridiculously stupid. But Lindqvist turned it, "Night of the Living Dead" style, into a "no matter what they do, they're dead."

Another testament to Lindqvist's talent: he makes a major, god-in-the-machine plot line involving what is essentially a magic slug work. And not just work, but work amazingly. I still don't see how this works. It shouldn't be interesting. It should ruin the book, or at least be a line we impatiently skim over. But no. It's every bit as good as the rest of the book.

In a nutshell, the story itself is fabulous. The translation is excellent. I'm going to use the word "atmospheric" yet again. A pervasive sense of dread begins on the second page and doesn't let up once. "Harbor" builds slowly but steadily, til you're fidgeting with anxiety.... All of the major characters are believable and well-drawn. For the first time in a lot of books, I had the sense I was reading about people, not just characters, down to the fact that he makes his quite average, bratty little daughter out to be an angel by the time she's been missing for two years.

As for cons, there are very few. Occasionally, the flashbacks pull you out of the story briefly (but that happened only rarely, and the flashbacks were otherwise fabulous). The ending (which I LOVED) will doubtless be seen by some as "too easy". Apart from that, and the fact that Anders was, at times, suspiciously clueless about what was happening on the island he'd spent most of his life on, I can't complain. "Harbor" was a fabulous novel, and I can already tell you I'm going to read it again. Read more ›

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A dozen characters in search of a horror June 8, 2012

By Steve

Format:Hardcover

"Harbor" opens with gut-wrenching immediacy -- the bewildered grief of parents who have lost a child -- then slows to a crawl as the author introduces the many odd and ambiguous personalities living on the island where the disappearance occurred, and then -- gets even slower. The author is neither a hack nor a Stephen King wannabe: as "Let the Right One In" demonstrated, he's his own man, and a writer whose talent breaks through even the occasional eccentricities of translation. But the menace here, revealed halfway through the narrative, is too abstract and unfocused to be threatening, and the jumble of other supernatural elements -- notably a centipede-like familiar called Spiritus -- only adds to the problem. The overwriting that was a minor nuisance in the earlier novel is a major problem here: there simply isn't enough going on to sustain 400-plus pages, and "Harbor" would have been twice as effective at half the length.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Evil water October 11, 2011

By TChris TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

The Earth and its creatures consist mostly of water. When water gets its evil on, it is a formidable and dangerous element. Even without a supernatural infestation, oceans (particularly at night) are frightening to behold. In Harbor, John Ajvide Lindqvist imagines the waters of the ocean as a diabolical force.

In 2004, a little girl named Maja disappears while visiting a lighthouse with her parents, Anders and Cecelia. Her disappearance on the small, isolated island of Domarö is impossible to explain. When Anders returns to the island a couple of years later, a series of eerie events suggest that Maja is trying to contact him. Anders later learns that Maja is not the first island resident to have disappeared, and that the island harbors secrets from generations past.

Anders is one primary character; another is Simon, an aging magician and escape artist who has lived on Domarö for years. In 1996, Simon pledges himself to a Spiritus, a dark little creature that resembles a centipede. When Simon drools on the Spiritus, he gains some of its life force; holding the Spiritus in his hand empowers Simon. Despite Simon's connection to the island, its life-long residents have kept a secret from him: the secret of the sea. It is the secret that animates the novel and that Anders must eventually understand if he is to make sense of Maja's disappearance.

As the plot develops, John Ajvide Lindqvist surrounds his characters with menacing images: a cardboard cutout of an ice cream man seems vaguely sinister; the wind-swept sea conveys a feeling of dread; the distant growl of a moped signals danger. Even swans are best avoided on Domarö. This is artful storytelling.

Unfortunately the images of horror are more interesting than the actual horror.... The problem, I think, is that there are just too many different manifestations of evil: the dead return to life in ghost-like fashion, the living are possessed in zombie-like fashion, a malevolent force dwells in the deep ... the riot of horror themes becomes a bit much, particularly with the addition of the Spiritus. While the Spiritus is the most imaginative of the supernatural forces at play in Harbor, its existence (and the role it plays at the novel's end) is almost too convenient. Having voiced that small complaint, however, I must give Lindqvist credit for tying it all together at the novel's end.

Harbor works best as a novel of psychological horror -- the horror not just of losing a child, but of a parent's realization that he never really knew his child. As a tale of supernatural horror, the novel is creative but not particularly frightening. The lengthy story is nonetheless entertaining. There are stories within stories in this unusual novel: stories of smuggling and stagecraft and love and Nordic adventure. Often the stories provide background, explaining, for instance, why two kids who went missing came to be treated as island outcasts and how Anders' father died. The stories of individuals confronting fears and hardships in an isolated environment showcase Lindqvist at his best, and provide sufficient reason to read Harbor. Read more ›

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Drowning in Pages November 13, 2011

By Bitsy Bling Books VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Each character is provided with a backstory so you're getting several stories within the story. This can work in character development, but in this particular book the original plot is dragged under and seemingly lost. The twists are slow to develop and after 300+ pages I really needed more to happen. Perhaps, because the intent is horror and suspense but I became rather bored and disinterested. The pacing, like the island, is isolating and distant. For me, it created a detachment with the plot and I had no problem putting the book down, but soon found it difficult to pick back up. The gap between current bizarre happenings and long back story fractured the experience, making reading chopping and awkward. Frankly, what should be intriguing became boring and uneventful. By the end, the pages themselves were killing me and I had little motivation to read on.