Customer Reviews

The Night of the Hunter

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book deserves a renaissance, or a rebirth, or something, because it is largely overlooked or ignored or simply nonexistent to an entire generation of readers who would undoubtedly love it as much as I did, and as much as the millions of people who turned it into a national bestseller in the 1950s. This tale of tragedy and suspense also offers some timeless commentary on religious hypocrisy and greed that are as relevant today as they were at the time.

Ostensibly about the plight of an eventually orphaned young brother and sister entrusted with a small fortune, and the villanous "preacher" who knows that they know where this fortune is, my perspective is that the book is as much a character study as it is a thriller. The characters in question are many, and greatly varied, ranging from the doomed parents to the well-meaning neighbors to the miscreant preacher, but the 10 year-old boy, John, is the most intriguing of them all. In the course of four chapters and an epilogue, a boy's innocence is lost in the most heartbreaking ways imaginable, yet in some way it is also restored by the story's end. If one of the central components of good literature is character transformation, we witness some truly extraordinary and entirely believable character evolution in the boy John, and the effect on the reader is so naturally emotional that we are blind to the mechanics of the author's manipulation. For me, that is the hallmark of excellent story telling.

This was Davis Grubb's finest hour as a novelist, and in my opinion it is every bit as good as any other piece of "classic" American literature. I rank this small masterpiece alongside such literary milestones as "To Kill A Mockingbird" and "East of Eden."

I bought this book in Italy, to read on the trains. I expected a routine crime thriller. It is much, much better than that. The Rev. Harry Powell is well known as one of the great villains. A great villain requires a great hero, and Grubb provides two of them. John Harper is very appealing in his devotion to his little sister Pearl, but it is Rachel Cooper that is the character that raises this book to the highest level. She has the capacity to change your life, with her capacity for goodness. She changed mine. What more could you ask for in a book?

Hemingway, Steinbeck, Tolstoy et al, will always have a place in the pantheon of literature. In this reader's opinion, this novel warrants a little niche in that pantheon for Davis Grubb, whose lean, muscular and evocative prose propels this thrilling story, driving it toward the inevitable conclusion.

Charles Laughton's movie based on this book was an interesting effort and well done, but if one hasn't read the unsentimental, un-varnished novel, then somewhere a potential reader is missing the juice. Like Laughton's screen effort the novel is indeed pregnant, but not at all unwieldly; rather, the book, slender as it is, is bursting with some of the best writing put to paper in any genre and is as good as anything ever written by the more prolific Masters.

Grubb's unpretentious style looms up from the pages like the reek of the bottom waters at river's edge. Subtle by turns, the terrifying game of hide-and-seek between light and shadow jumps at the most unexpected moments, just like the novel's villain with his knife.

Filled with archetypes and certainly many levels of meaning for interpretation by the reader, this is one novel one won't forget soon. It stalks memory and, personally, I find myself still returning to the book from time to time to savor a magnificently rendered mood, and a time, place and story that is as fresh and exciting now as it was almost half a century ago.

Writing true and honest profiles of such diverse characters, let alone children, is no easy thing, and Grubb's work is peopled with wholly believable characters who truly cast shadows, live and breathe, even in the periphery. This is part of the novel's triumph.

I cannot recommend Night of the Hunter too highly. It's simply a "must read" for anyone who loves good literature, fine writing --and isn't predjudiced against genre. In this beautiful, sinister work, Davis Grubb breaks the mold.

I don't want to review this tight, crisp and wonderfully lurid little potboiler, with its Jim Thompson feel, for its literary qualities - other reviews here have done that very well. I just want to alert potential buyers to how awfully produced this "Blackmask Online" edition is itself. From the badly-reproduced publicity still from the Charles Laughton movie on the front cover, to the colors bleeding on the publisher's logo on the back cover, to the mangled English of the back cover blurb, this book has the feel of those pirate novels you buy in South-East Asian cities. Inside, it's worse! Everything is tightly packed: there's no evidence of the hand of a designer with the least sense of...well...design. Or font. Or spacing. Or layout. Epigraphs are crammed at the tops of chapters as inelegantly as you could possibly make it. Poetry in the epigraphs (by Donne, Hopkins for instance) is laid out as prose not poetry. Paragraph indents are so small you can barely see them. Apostrophes in slang or shortened words are back-to-front. Random underscores appear from nowhere at the beginnings of paragraphs. An execrable production, and a real moneyspinning rip-off. I just wanted to make that point here: if you like the physical appearance and feel of books as well as what's inside, you'll be very disappointed when this one turns up. I'm surprised a more reputable publisher didn't still have the rights to this (Blackmask don't even seem to know the protocols of copyright pages, so we don't even know who the original publishers were, merely from looking at this book). I'd recommend getting a nice old copy of this gem of a book from a second-hand site like Abebooks. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to treat this as a lesson learned, and remember not to buy from Blackmask again.

With the publication of a new edition Amazon seems to have deleted the earlier reviews. They were unanimous in their praise for Night of the Hunter,

I bought the book in Italy to read on the trains. There wasn't much of a selection. I expected a routine crime thriller.

We have cheapened superlatives to the point where they really don't resonate. If I tell you it's the best book I have ever read, I may be setting your expectations so high that it can never meet them.

It did change my life.

Grubb provides one of the best "bad guys" in literature: the Reverend Harry Powell. A bad guy needs a hero. Powell is so bad that it takes two heroes to offset him.

The first is John Harper, the older brother. If you happen to have two children -- an older brother and a younger sister -- the story of their relationship has immense power.

The second is Rachel Cooper. She is my favorite character in my reading life.

She is immensely strong, with a forgiving nature. It was her ability to forgive that helped me to forgive someone -- to change my life.

Of course Robert Mitchum is well known for having played Reverend Powell in the movie -- for good reason. Lillian Gish played Rachel Cooper. She was wonderful.

The movie continues to grow in stature, while the novel seems to be forgotten. (There is a musical version of Night of the Hunter out there somewhere.) This is an unfortunate, as Grubb deserves to be recognized as a great writer.

I've been reading my way through all his works -- that I can find. Fools Parade is the most accessible -- terrific, and Shadow of My Brother is a very powerful story of racism that, unfortunately, is still highly relevant.

Grubb wrote with strong emotional content. The emotional power of Voices of Glory is so high that I haven't had the composure to read it yet. I'm trying to understand how he did that, to be able to write like that myself.

Night of the Hunter has always been one of my favorite films: eerie, atmospheric, gripping are just a few words that come to mind for this masterpiece, the only film made by silent film star Charles Laughton. It gets better with each viewing. I only got around lately to reading Davis Grubb's source material and it's just as amazing and mesmerizing as the movie. If you like a book that gives you genuine chills, yet still creates really sympathetic characters, give this one a try. Of course, if you're like me and loved the movie, you owe it to yourself to see why they wanted to make it into a movie.

Davis Grubb, The Night of the Hunter (Prion, 1953)

It took me three or four tries to get myself immersed in The Night of the Hunter, the only book Davis Grubb wrote that is still remembered (and that because the film based on it was the only one Charles Laughton ever directed). The first few times I attempted to read the book, I'd wrestle with the first few pages, which are truly mediocre and absent of the "astonishing verbal magic" (quote attributed to the New York Times) blurbed on the front cover of Prion's edition. I'd put it down, walk away from it, and pick it up a month or so later and try again. It took me until the last weekend in August to get far enough with it that it grabbed me, which happened about twenty pages in. And honestly, "grabbed" is not the right word; while this is noir through and through, it never really demands your attention as much as it does whisper for it.

Loosely based on the story of Harry F. Powers, "the Bluebeard of Moundsville" (a lonelyhearts killer), The Night of the Hunter is the story of Harry Powell, an itinerant preacher and serial killer of women (we're never entirely sure how many, but at the opening of the novel it is somewhere between six and a dozen) who meets a man condemned for murder in prison. The guy stole ten thousand bucks, which was a whole lot of money in the Depression era, and hid it somewhere. Wouldn't tell anyone, not even his wife. Powell aims to find out where that money is, and decides to take the most direct way possible--marrying the widow, Willa Harper. All seems to be going well, except that John, Willa's son, takes an instant dislike to Powell, just as John's sister Pearl takes an instant liking to him. But still, it seems Willa was telling the truth--her husband never told her where the money was hid. In fact, only two people know...

Grubb's language is thick and slow, like Ohio River water in the calm after a storm, and modern readers used to the sleeker, faster-paced tales of writers like Grisham and Kellerman are going to have a hard time getting used to it even after you get to the point where the plot catches hold of the hem of your garment. Linger over it, however, and you will find it is worth your time. My main criticism of the book I would probably never have come up with without seeing the movie; the big plot twist of where the money is hidden, which James Agee left to the last few frames to reveal in his film script, is revealed here less than halfway through the book (considerably earlier if you're paying attention). In my mind that cuts out a lot of suspense that Grubb could have played with, not to mention alternate explanations (the oft-repeated sentiment that the money was tied around a rock and tossed into the Ohio... I can't remember if any of that ever made it into the film, but it would certainly have more resonance if you didn't already know where the money was). Still, I can't fault Grubb, who was nominated for the National Book Award for this tale, for being improved upon by so mighty a light as James Agee, one of the best dramatists to ever take up a pen. (As a quick note, The Night of the Hunter was one of only two original full-length works Agee produced specifically for the silver screen; the other, The African Queen, is equally a classic.) But it still leaves an undertone of what might have been.

If you're familiar with noir, you know that there's no such thing as a happy ending, and yet Grubb still manages to hand you a happy ending, but make it the bleakest sort of happy ending possible. That's got to count for something. ***

Having recently seen and greatly enjoyed the 1955 film "The Night of the Hunter", I decided to read the original novel by Davis Grubb. I can honestly say I was not let down.

It is the 1930s and West Virginia is crushed under economic depression. Stalking the Ohio Valley, a psychopathic self-proclaimed preacher named Harrey Powell is hunting for widows to slay for their money. The novel really takes off when Powell arrives at the residence of a recently executed bank robber looking for $10,000. The story itself is interesting in that it is largely told from the point of view of the children of Powell's latest victim. The older sibling, a nine year old boy named John is the story's main protagonist and quickly has his doubts about the newly arrived preacher who is about to become his stepfather. What follows is a story of suspense, the loss of childhood innocence, and the dark reaches of the human heart.

Inevitably comparisons will arrise between the novel and film. On the positive side, the novel provides greater background on some of the characters. On the more negative side, the novel features more cursing which really doesn't add anything to the story in this particular case. The novel was still a good read though. However, I personally must admit to enjoying the film better. Robert Mitchum as Harry Powell and Lillian Gish as Elizabeth Cooper portrayed their characters with more depth than mere words could provide. I realize some literary purists will likely disagree with my opinion, but in this case the film was very close in plot to the book (practically line by line in many cases) and the acting as well as the atmospheric cinematography simply tipped the scales in favor of the film.

This is an excellent thriller and it's very grim. It's surprisingly not dated for a book from the fifties. Excellent and highly recommended

The only reason I read this book was because one of my English professors put it on the course material for a class on American Literature. He only knew about it because he had seen an old (unpopular) movie version from the '50s as a child, then later learned that the movie was based on the book.

I am a pretty avid reader who tends to prefer more epic literature from ancient times, or fantastic novels like Tolkien, Lewis, MacDonald, etc. But I was bowled over with this book. It is engaging, suspenseful, and rooted in a deep symbolism that ranks with the best of Melville, Irving, or even Mark Twain.

The story revolves around a young boy named John Harper who living the Depression-era South. John's father, Ben Harper, robs and (accidentally) shoots and kills a bank clerk. Ben Harper runs home before the police find him, hides the money, tells his young son (John) and even younger daughter (Pearl) where it is, and makes them swear never to tell anyone; not even their mother, whom Ben believes would squader it.

Ben Harper is taken to prison, where he meets his cellmate, a charismatic, serial-killing, Moralist preacher named Harry Powell, who believes that he is exactiny God's revenge on various sinners; especially prostitutes. But he has never been caught or convicted. Powell is only coincidentally in prison with Harper for allegedly stealing a car.

After incessant pleading, Powell gets Harper to reveal in his sleep that his son John knows where the money is. Once Powell is let out of prison, he is off to Harper's hometown to find a way to get the blood-money. The novel centers around Powell's invasion into young John's world. Powell (whom everyone merely calls "Preacher") starts a small church in John's town and becomes a trusted, respectable member of the community. All the while, John, who immediately picks up on Powell's intentions (and vice versa), must resist Powell's efforts to make him reveal the whereabouts of the money.

To say any more than that would be revealing too much of the plot. But Harry Powell (affectionatly called "Preacher" by everyone who knows him) attempts to slowly wear away at John's will by various tactics. The relationship between Harry Powell and young John Harper is truly frightening, as John has no one whom he can talk to because he believes it would be a sin to break the oath to his father if he told anyone about the money. He must silently fight off Powell in any way he can.

Why this novel is not recognized as a classic is beyond me. This is, beyond a doubt, one of the best American novles that I have ever come across. I hope that someday it will see a rennaissance. Definitely worth reading!