Customer Reviews

The Night Class

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Cal Prentiss hasn't had an easy life; his sister killed herself in front of him when he was five, and his palms gush blood whenever someone close to him dies. Now he returns to university for his final semester to find that a girl has been killed in his dorm room over winter break. Not only has the incident been kept out of the media, but no one at the school seems to know anything about it. Or at least, they're not talking. Cal takes on the mystery of the murdered girl as his pet project, but completing it may cost him more than he bargained for. He's bleeding again.

This is an excellent, atmospheric mystery with full characters and a genuine feel for setting. There's something inherently creepy about a college campus in winter, and the author takes full advantage of that. With this second novel (mine, not the author's -- I'd previously read THE DECEASED), Tom Piccirilli has risen to the top of my list of horror authors to watch out for.

I can see why this book won a Bram Stoker Award for Best Horror Novel of the year. Few authors are as capable as Tom Piccirilli of building up an unsettling and disturbing atmosphere of dread. Small details twist and coil and continue to add to all the other many touches of evil. The winter campus setting is also the perfect vehicle to tell this offbeat tale of a young man haunted by supernatural forces even as he tries to battle what appears to be a conspiracy of murder in the hallowed halls of his university. When Cal Prentiss returns from the winter break to find that a girl has been killed in his dorm room, he grows obsessed with bringing the culprit to justice. Is her ghost, and the spirit of his dead sister, actually haunting Cal or is he having a nervous breakdown as he suffers stigmata? Piccirilli takes us on a crazed investigation into the heart of malevolence and fear. Five stars, check it out.

Tom Piccirilli is one of the most consistently innovative horror writers currently working in the industry. All of his novels manage to raise the bar another notch and each one is completely unique and wholly different from the next. The Night Class has touches of the supernatural that are perfectly intertwined with a story that is, at its core, a mystery that leads the hero through his own dark night of the soul. The fact that the entire book takes place in a single night proves how well Piccirilli manages to frame his story within the context of his own subtle symbolism. This is a thriller that takes place on a university campus where a murder has occurred, but really it's the tale of one man's journey through a night of madness where everything he's come to believe is shaken and corrupted. A brilliant literary event.

I was halfway through with Tom Piccirilli's THE NIGHT CLASS when I learned that the book had been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for the year's best novel. I'd have to agree that it deserves all the attention it can get. This is the kind of enticing novel that will grip you from page one (from the first sentence) and hold you spellbound all the way through. This is a strong mystery with a strangely twining plot line at its center.

Cal Prentiss returns from the winter break to discover that a girl has been murdered in his form room. If that wasn't bad enough, he's been haunted since childhood by the sight of seeing his sister commit suicide in front of him. As he approaches the end of his final semester at college (i.e., "time is running out"), he learns to face the so-called real world and all its hypocricy and irony.

Apparently a murderer is loose on campus, but no one seems to care except for Cal. As he grows ever more obsessed with learning all he can about the dead girl in his room, he is hounded by questions of what true evil might be. Cal suffers from stigmata and his hands bleed whenever someone close to him dies. The more he bleeds the more he realizes that someone is killing everybody he loves or cares about.

Piccirilli is a poet at heart, and his writing is so lyrical and beautiful in places that it should be read aloud. This is a haunting, fast read that will linger with you long after you've turned the final page. This is a brilliant, imaginative novel, and Piccirilli never settles for a quick payout where story, voice, style, or his narrative vision is concerned. THE NIGHT CLASS is one of the best of the year. Highly recommended.

A deeply affecting novel that takes the college life and spins it on its ear. Here is the story of a man who returns to campus after the winter break to find that a murder has been committed in his dorm room. He grows more and more obsessed with not only finding the killer, but discovering the true identity of the victim.

Slowly our protagonist, Caleb Prentiss, comes to fear that he's haunted not only by the dead girl, but also by his own sister--a former nun who committed suicide in his arms. Ever since that time, Cal has suffered from stigmata whenever someone close to him dies.

Despite the backstory, the book itself takes place in a 24 hour period. Cal learns more in this day than in his four years of higher education. He discovers secrets about his university, his teachers, his best friends, and even himself.

A gripping, thrilling, suspenseful read, I urge you all to sign up for this night class immediately!

Few writers are as talented as Tom Piccirilli when creating an all-consuming atmosphere of dread. Even the most innocent details can have touches of evil. Here he turns campus life on its head and topples it over, giving us one night in the life of a student who finds that nothing in his academic world has been what it seems.

Cal Prentiss returns from the winter break to find that a girl has been murdered in his dorm room. Half-heartedly, he decides to write about his fantasies of her as his senior thesis. Is her ghost, and the spirit of his dead sister, actually haunting Cal or is he simply coming apart as he prepares to enter "the real world"? Another bit of weirdness is tossed in: Cal suffers from stigmata whenever someone on campus dies.

And from that single plot element Piccirilli takes us on a frenzied investigation into the heart of university malevolence and student activities of the most bizarre kind. This edition is also signed by the author and artist, which makes it that much more worthwhile.

There have been many mystery/crime thrillers that have crossed over into horror territory through use of graphic violence and viscera. But few have approached that gray area between genres with such subtle supernatural currents as in Piccirrilli's Night Class. This is a story told in the course of a single day and night as a young man, weeks away from graduating from his university, finally discovers what kind of evil forces are at work on campus. From his own darkest heart he journeys through betrayal, fear, and other revelations that will draw the reader in until he's on the edge of his seat. I read this one in two long sittings because I loathed to put it down. I bet you feel the same way.

Cal Prentiss is an intelligent, hypersensitive college student in fear for his sanity as his life around him begins to crumble. His ambitious girlfriend seems ready to leave him behind as graduation approaches, and his other friends suffer from the same lack of resolve. After the winter recess he leans that someone has apparently been murdered in his room while he's been away and suddenly he has a sense of purpose in his life: to find the killer. As Cal comes closer and closer to finding out the gruesome truth about the victim and the events leading to her death, he also learns terrifying truths about himself and those he loves. Piccirilli is an incredibly subtle and atmospheric writer who holds back from making any easy choices through the course of the novel. There is crime, blood, madness, sex, and ghostly imagery that pervades the tale, but the real horrors lay in Cal's mind as he unravels bit by bit over one long, horrible night. Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. Highly recommended.

Cal Prentiss seems to float through his life. He's an intelligent, sensitive young man who suffers from a lack of ambition. He loves his girlfriend, but the relationship really isn't going anywhere. He doesn't mind getting an education, but he finds himself stuck in pointless classes like Professor Yokver's philosophy course. Then he returns to his dorm room after winter break to find that something terrible occurred there while he was gone. The new paint on the walls and the new mattress on the bed can't cover up the fact that someone was murdered. Cal then becomes obsessed with finding out more about the dead young woman. His relationships suffer, and his grades fall as he finds himself thinking day and night about the woman and the person responsible for taking her life. Could this be related to the stigmata that Cal has suffered at various times in his life? Incredibly, on the day he storms out of Professors Yok's class, Cal swirls closer and closer to finding out the gruesome truth about this murder as well as about the people closest to him.

Piccirilli writes with a subtlety that is quite refreshing in the world of in-your-face horror. There are blood, violence and sex in this story, but the imagery is more focused on the reaction of Cal as well as his innermost thoughts rather than shock value. This novel has a surreal, dreamlike quality; all the events are seen through Cal's eyes as interpreted by him, and Cal seems to be losing his grip on reality most of the time. One of my favorite passages is: "Foolishly he listened to the squeaks he made as he dragged his wet fists along the shining metal handrails, leaving behind red trails."

I really liked this story and have no regrets about buying it. This ends up being more of a crime suspense thriller rather than out and out horror, but it is nonetheless very much worth the time to read it.

Tom Piccirilli's "The Night Class," set in a university, begins with that age-old problem of every student who has ever walked through the hollowed halls of academia. Caleb Prentiss sits sulking in his 8:00 AM philosophy class watching Professor Yokver make a fool out of himself yet again. A majority of the students in Yok's class seem to enjoy the back flips, the nonsense chatter, and the idea that motion does not exist in a philosophical sense. But Cal finds it taxing in the extreme, especially when he wants nothing more than to idle away his hours in front of the television set or to spend time with girlfriend Jodi (who sits in Yokver's class as well) and his small group of friends. Predictably, the professor recognizes Cal's impatience and disdain for his class, often targeting Cal for special attention. On this fine morning Cal will have nothing of the sort, and he finally stands up to the professor, tells him off, and storms out of the class for the final time with only marginal concern about the consequences such an action will have on his GPA.

Cal does have other concerns than a nutty philosophy class. Jodi plans on enrolling in medical school where she hopes her lifelong love of learning will finally pay off. Cal isn't sure where he fits into her plans, but he recognizes her desire to escape a trailer trash background as he struggles with his own sense of ineptness. Cal's emotional state is further imperiled by the tenuous relationship between his friends Willy and Rose. But the real clincher comes when Cal realizes a murder took place in his room over the Christmas break. He begins to obsess over the identity of this young woman (named Sylvia Campbell), tracking down information about the crime from two sadistic campus security guards and locating her possessions stored in a building on the university grounds. As Cal's infatuation with the mysterious Sylvia grows, more questions than answers arise. Whose is Sylvia and why is her background so shrouded in mystery? Why do none of his friends realize a murder took place in his room? What role does the university play in the homicide? As Cal begins to write his senior thesis on this sad incident, his own sense of self and his relationships start to crumble.

"The Night Class" is not a conventional horror story. To begin with, there is little in the way of gore or overt scares found here. Piccirilli decides to take a cerebral tack instead, spending most of the story outlining Cal's psychological state and his troubled relations with other people. We discover that Cal has many problems, that he is a binge drinker who obsesses over witnessing the suicide of his sister many years before. He also has a problem of getting stigmata on his hands when someone close to him dies. Cryptic clues about where the story is going appear from time to time, such as references to Cal's eerie "acceptability" to the faculty and university. The reader is left in the dark about what all of this means until the end of the story, when the author rips down the curtains and we learn this is a tale about illusions and power, about how those individuals who hold real power in society and how they abuse authority. In this case, it is university administrators and professors who make or break students seeking entry into the professional world. Professors have the power of grades over their pupils, but in Piccirilli's world the power of grades also leads to the coercion of sexual favors from dedicated students.

"The Night Class" as a novel does not work as well as it could. The whole book resembles a series of scenes rather than a unified novel, and a reader quickly gets bogged down in the details without knowing where exactly this whole thing is going. Even the ending is a bit of a letdown, as Cal learns the real nature of what his university is about and tries to put a stop to the shenanigans. The idea of paying any price to gain admittance to the top tiers of society is a good one, but its execution suffers in "The Night Class."

What does work well is the author's ability to construct a gripping scene. Arguably the best example of this talent concerns Cal's adventure to the strip club where his friend Willy spends most of his time. Cal not only visits with Willy, but also notices a girl he had a crush on from school is part of the stage show. Through pages of minute description, Piccirilli manages to convey the atmospheric tensions of such a place, the dynamic between the promise of beauty and the seedy nature of this profession. This scene also imparts an important clue to the story when Cal sees beyond the façade of his college crush, seeing the scars of injury and drug use underneath the makeup and suggestive outfit. In other words, there is corruption behind the face presented to the public. The university is the same way. It is many of these carefully crafted scenes that makes the book worth reading.

Tom Piccirilli won a Bram Stoker Award for this novel in 2002, but I felt as though the author was merely doodling his way through the book. A better structured novel with sufficient sign posts along the way so the reader knows where he or she is heading would make a more interesting read. Piccirilli can write, of that there is no doubt, but his organizational skills in "The Night Class" are sorely lacking.