Harvest Home [Hardcover]

Thomas Tryon (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 401 pages
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; 1st edition (May 12, 1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394485289
• ISBN-13: 978-0394485287
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Memorable Horror, July 13, 2005

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Harvest Home (Hardcover)

Born in 1926, Thomas Tryon first came to public attention as an actor in such films as I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE and the popular television series TEXAS JOHN SLAUGHTER--but Tryon's acting career began to falter in the early 1960s. Fortunately, he turned to writing and discovered his true calling: the 1971 novel THE OTHER was a critical and popular sensation, easily one of the best psychological horror novels of the decade. He followed it in 1973 with equally lauded and popular HARVEST HOME.

Read today, it easy to foresee several of the major plots of HARVEST HOME--but this is largely because so many later novelists (including Stephen King) borrowed so liberally from the novel. Still, there's nothing like the original, and in 1973 the book was all of that, the tale of a New York couple with a difficult teenager daughter who decide to trade the crime-ridden cityscape for countryside peace... and stumble into a rural nightmare that makes a metropolitan crime wave seem tame by comparison.

Cornwall Coombe is a tiny, isolated village, the sort of place where everyone is related to everyone else by blood or marriage or sometimes both. It is also a community that clings to "the old ways," rejecting most modern agricultural ideas--not to mention newcomers to the area. As it happens, however, Ned and Beth Constantine and their daughter are smiled upon by the Widow Fortune, a woman who holds tremendous sway in the community, and as time passes they are accepted.

But into what? For it soon transpires that the "old ways" include a number of odd superstitions, all of them centering on the cycle of seasons and the area's corn crop. At first Ned is amused, then curious--but the more he learns the more disturbing the superstitions and traditions become. And unsavory stories abound: the strange grave of Gracie Everdean, the mystery of Missy Penrose's parentage, the ghost of "Soake's Lonesome"--and always, always the corn crop itself.

The novel can be criticized for the occasional plot or character inconsistency, and as previously noted the basic premise has been so often repeated that much of the plot can be foreseen. Even so, it is a tremendously readable novel, atmospheric and truly disturbing, and while it does not best Tryon's THE OTHER (which remains his masterpiece), HARVEST HOME is uniquely memorable in its own right.

Sadly, Tryon would die in 1991, having written only a handful of novels; amazingly, most of his works--including THE OTHER and HARVEST HOME--are out of print. But like THE OTHER, HARVEST HOME is well worth seeking out. Recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Patiently Paced Novel of Believable Horror!, August 4, 2005

By 

Get What We Give (Georgia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Harvest Home (Hardcover)

Thomas Tryon, an actor turned author, crafted one of the finest real horror novels of the latter half of the 20th century with The Other. With Harvest Home, he took us again into the realms of real horror - horror that doesn't involve monsters, but the people right next door.

While Harvest Home borrows from historic horror authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Stevenson, Tryon treads new ground for the modern novel. Harvest Home (1973) demonstrated to many modern authors (Stephen King and Peter Straub both acknowledge borrowing heavily from Tryon) how horror novels don't have to contain creatures or aliens to be scary.

Harvest Home is the story of a young couple who move to a remote hamlet in New England, known as Harvest Home. The village has chosen to remain isolated over the years. While not Quaker or Amish, the feeling is similar. The residents are all either related to or married to other residents of the village. The residents are not too welcoming of outsiders.

When the Widow Fortune takes a liking to the family, the town eases its defenses and also embraces them. The problem is that there is something sinister running amok in the village. There is something creepy going on during the corn harvest....

When you read this novel, you have to be able to imagine yourself in a time before Stephen King's novels (because he crafted several novels and stories based on material he gleaned from this book)...a time before modern horror cinema had bastardized all the really unique ideas that Tryon laid out in this book.

The novel was another best seller for Tryon. It also spawned a film, albeit a made-for-TV film. It was a huge hit for the network, because almost everyone at the time had read the novel AND it starred the inimitable Bette Davis as the Widow Fortune.

Get this novel through hook or crook and allow your mind to go back in time....and prepare to be scared.

Not as good as "The Other," but certainly a worthy follow-up to it.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars enduring horror classic, October 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Harvest Home (Hardcover)

harvest home can still give me chills nearly 30 years after first reading it. living in connecticut, not far south of saxony, cornwall and kent (yes-- they're all real connecticut towns) i drag out my dog-eared copy every halloweentime and silently carp at ned constantine to stay out of the woods. does anyone else out there think, as i do, that sophie hooke did not hang herself but was also murdered quietly by the widow, so that beth could step in to the corn maiden role and have the opportunity to get pregnant according to the widow's "plan" (sophie claimed to be diseased in the conversation she'd had with justin. the widow would know that bit of medical info and wouldn't want to take a chance on a blighted corn maiden or pregancy.) just a thought. on the other hand, maybe i've just read the book too often!