Customer Reviews

The Night Country

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There exist many different kinds of horror. On one side, you have the more visceral and violent kind. On the other, you have the more quiet and emotional one. The Night Country, an amazingly affective novel, falls into this second category. Written with much soul and emotion, it's a nearly poetic treatise about the sadness of death and the sadness of life.

The story takes place a year after a horrible car crash that left four teenagers dead, one badly injured and one unharmed. Now, a year later, the ghosts of the departed ones look at the world and the people who used to matter in their lives. It is now the eve of Halloween, the day when, one year ago, the accident happened. We follow these characters for twenty-four hours, until the very tragic end of the story.

The story follows many different subplots that all merge into one. You have Brookes, the cop who was the first to arrive at the scene of the accident and who has been badly scarred by it ever since. You have Tim, the only one who survived unharmed and who hasn't been able to deal with the event. And you have Kyle, who survived the crash but who was left damaged in more ways than one, and his parents.

As our narrator, the late Marco, tells us what happens to these characters, the other ghosts often argue with him or come in to tell us their brief version of things. O'Nan weaves his narrative in such a way that you never quite know where the book is taking you. Well, you know where it is trying to go although you wish it will never get there.

The Night Country is a book that is all about death. There is very little joy to be found in this story. Instead, what you find is sadness. These characters are too badly scarred to ever be able to mend their lives back into what they used to be.

Powerful, touching and incredibly affective, The Night Country is that rare horror novels that achieves greatness on many levels. You will not soon forget these characters, nore will you forget this powerful tale of mourning without hope. O'Nan has just found himself a new fan. I can't wait to read his other books!

The best horror novel of 2003. Yes, it's bleak, but it's about the death of three teenagers in a car crash. I can't believe people would give this thing a bad review because it's depressing. The author should be praised for doing his job. If you want crap like Dean Koontz, then by all means, pick up your books at Wal-Mart and read crap. If a book is too much for you, then stay away from it. Idiots.
What's really amazing is the amount of laughs O'nan squeezes out of us, and this while submerged in his dark universe (a place called "real life"--mighta heard of it; innocent kids die there). The dead teens seem to be the only ones having a good time, and their diolgoue isn't the stilted crap that most writers give us when taking on the "cool" persona of a teenager.
Anyone who has ever lived in a small town will relate to The Car Accident. Every town has one, and it's the same fear that slasher movies drive on. All those kids killed by Jason or Freddy or Madman Marz (an A-plus to everyone who gets that last reference) are standing in for thos empty seats in third-hour algebra and the missing faces at graduation. Same with the talk of murdered teens in the opening scene of "Jeepers Creepers." But O'nan doesn't soften the blow with distance. There's no monster in a hockey mask standing in for a tragic accident. He gives us the real thing, and tells us that ghosts are of our own devising. And deep down, it's something we've known all along.
O'Nan's love of the genre also comes through, with references ranging from Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol to "Return of the Living Dead." Refreshing to read, because too many "serious" horror novels are written by posers who wouldn't know William Castle from Paul Naschy. We've got the Neo-Gothic, the Southern Gothic, and what O'nan gives us, what I would call the Suburban Gothic--the place of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and "Ginger Snaps," of pumpkins on porches and kids dressed like skeletons. What Bradbury would call Halloween Country, and O'nan knows as Night Country. It's just usually not this real.

O'Nan is well known for his disturbing novels that manage to hook the reader and tighten his emotions to the breaking point. The Night Country manages to do this in "real time", the bulk of the story taking place on Halloween one year after a tragic car wreck that left a group of friends decimated. Three have died and are ghosts haunting the town, while a fourth is brain-damaged, and a traumatized fifth suffers suvivor's guilt. Told from the perspective of one of the ghosts, who can get "into the heads" of all other characters, we learn the details of the crash and the fears, sorrows, and heartaches of the townsfolk. Disturbing, complex, and very human, this book will touch you to your core.

For the first 75 pages, I was intrigued enough to continue reading and hoped this plodding story would blossom. For the next 100 pages, my interest withered away, but I kept reading. The remainder of the novel bored me with false hopes of anything positive to take away from this overly long diary of victims, vandalism, despair, teenage angst and car crashes.

Sold to me as contemporary gothic horror by an independent bookseller, it took me a month to get through the novel (and not for lack of trying). I was devoid of caring for any of the lackluster characters. Perhaps it is the novel's construction and first person point of view from a character who offers absolutely nothing relevant or interesting to the story, save he's the most generic and least repulsive of the teenage spirits. Instead of being scary or creepy, the spirits seemed spiteful, mundane and selfish. Three-fourths through the book, I hoped the teenage spirits would die a second time, just to be rid of them. While I enjoyed the author's writing style, the plot was too sketchy, dark when it really didn't need to be and as lifeless as the teenage spirits running around.

Stewart O'Nan's THE NIGHT COUNTRY is a mesmerizing, provocative, and ultimately tragic little book. Despite its length, it packs a tremendous amount of characterization and emotional wallop than many books twice its length.
Halloween has never seemed more frightening and spooky than as conveyed in this brilliant story of the tragic deaths of three young people and the scars left on the two survivors: Tim, whose scars are deeply psychological and Kyle, whose brain damage is heartbreaking. As is Kyle's mother, Nancy, who tries so hard to recover from the devastating loss of what was once her son, and the spiraling downfall of her marriage to a man who can't share the grief.
The setting is ominous yet beautiful; even though we can tell fairly soon where this book is going, you are still entranced with it. Equally pitiable is Officer Brooks, whose involvement in the accident, haunts him as well.
A stunning novel, not a true horror book, but a ghost story with passion, sensability and humanity.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This sad, evocative story suffers somewhat in the obviousness of its conclusion, but still features much of the rich, insightful writing which has become O'Nan's trademark. Most moving is what isn't said: the silences amid the reactions of Danielle's ghost to Tim's behavior express much about the inability of love ultimately to help us overcome our own solitude, and the geometries of grief transform the lives of survivors in terrible ways.

Don't misunderstand: this is not a horror novel, but a representational mosaic of what we lose when those we love die. I can't help but compare it to The Sweet Hereafter, by Russell Banks, which actually may be better even if only because it doesn't rely on the presence of ghostly narrators to frame its observations. Both are terrific.

And the lives altered by it. Stewart O'Nan takes the lives of all the people involved in a terrible car wreck on Halloween, puts them under a magnifying glass and forces you to watch their shattered existences play out in this brilliant novel he dedicated to Ray Bradbury-another God of the written word.

The story is told from the perspective of ghost teenagers who perished in the crash. When their loved ones think of them, which is almost all the time, they are summoned to their sides to watch on helpless, as their lives spiral out of control from losing them.

When you reach the midway point of this book, you'll think it's nothing more than a deep character study of these ruined lives, but then O'Nan takes you in a completely different direction, turning his prose into suspense, taking hold of your mind until you reach the final page.

This guy knows how to write and keep the reader wondering what the hell is going on in a good way. And as with any meaningful book, the characters in this one stay with you after the final page is turned.

The Night Country was my first O'Nan book and after turning page fifty, I got back on here fast and ordered more of his works. This isn't a bad place to start, I think.

This one will stay with you ... trust me.

Horrordude

A ghost story where no one seems particularly haunted by the ghosts themselves but rather by the event that led to their passing and what could have been.

Five teenagers were involved in a car crash on Halloween. Two of them survived, one without injury the other with a traumatic and disfiguring brain injury.

We meet the narrator, who died in the crash, on the eve of the first anniversary of the accident. We see how the accident has changed the lives of the survivors, their parents and the police officer who was first on the scene.

I liked the teenagers and their gallows humor. I liked Brooks, the cop who found them after the crash. O'Nan thoughtfully examines the issue of quality of life and the struggles of those who care for the elderly, infirm and debilitated.

The writing was very good, the characters believable and the emotions portrayed very realistic. I enjoyed it while I was reading it. It's certainly no inspirational or uplifting story. But O'Nan does the bummer very well.

this book is beautifully written, to say the least. there is not a whole lot of room for character development, but mr. o'nan does a wonderful job of getting the reader involved with the characters. you can really feel their pain, and that's something special to be able to do that in such a short interval. its not really scary, but it is more of a drama and the way it is told, i have never seen before...very creative, and a joy to read. pick it up, and give it a try...

O'Nan's The Night Country is a beautifully written account of a suburban tragedy. High school kids killed in a car wreck and the aftermath that follows as seen from the point of view of the deceased. As absurd as this seems on the surface, O'Nan pulls it off by including so many real details in the setting of the story. In much the same way Stephen King uses brand names and pop-culture references, O'Nan uses real locations in such great detail that the story has a true air of realism. Dunkin' Donuts and Stop-n-Shop should pay O'Nan for the free advertising. The reader will be easily pulled along for a melancholy ride that could leave lasting depression. Unfortunately, there is no redemption in this story. It has an unavoidable ending that is completely expected against all hope. This is not a book for horror crowd, although it might be presented as such in some of its jacket blurbs. It really has much more in common with Alice Sebold than Dean Koontz. It is a highly recomended read with two caveats-don't expect surprises or a happy ending. You might not enjoy it but you will feel it.